{"id":2659,"date":"2011-07-17T21:41:42","date_gmt":"2011-07-17T16:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calamur.org\/gargi\/?p=2659"},"modified":"2011-07-17T21:41:42","modified_gmt":"2011-07-17T16:41:42","slug":"the-thirty-day-project-day-12-mumbais-tipping-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calamur.org\/gargi\/2011\/07\/17\/the-thirty-day-project-day-12-mumbais-tipping-point\/","title":{"rendered":"The Thirty Day Project \u2013 Day 12 – Mumbai’s tipping point"},"content":{"rendered":"

it has been a strange sort of a weekend. raining almost non stop since the day of the blasts.<\/p>\n

The roads are tattered. Parts of the highway look as though they have been gouged out. I was in Bandra – yesterday and the day before – in one of the most well to do enclaves – and there were no roads.<\/p>\n

The interlocking tiles are a mess – they have come lose creating traffic snarls.<\/p>\n

Driving is a gamble – by the time i get home my entire body hurts with the effort of keeping the car stable and not hitting anyone with it.<\/p>\n

And, citizens are breaking traffic laws. On Friday – I traversed the distance between my office and home – approx 9 kms – in 2.5 hours. And, the bulk of the snarls were caused by illegal parking on SV Road, by people trying to get into a one way street from the other way …<\/p>\n

We can’t expect the cops to be everywhere – we can’t follow the rules just because there is a cop watching.<\/p>\n

__________________<\/p>\n

In the book “Tipping Point<\/a><\/strong>” Malcolm Gladwell<\/a><\/strong> talks about how the New York City administration dealt with murders and robberies on the New York metro system in the 1980’s. The metro system was likened to Dante’s inferno – a ride through hell.<\/p>\n

The response of the administration was based on the “Broken Windows Theory<\/a><\/strong>“. The theory <\/a><\/strong>originally proposed by\u00a0\u00a0Dr. James Q. Wilson and George Kelling<\/p>\n

takes its name from the observation that a few broken windows in an empty building quickly lead to more smashed panes, more vandalism and eventually to break-ins. The tendency for people to behave in a particular way can be strengthened or weakened depending on what they observe others to be doing. This does not necessarily mean that people will copy bad behaviour exactly, reaching for a spray can when they see graffiti. Rather,… it can foster the \u201cviolation\u201d of other norms of behaviour.<\/p>\n

The New York metro system tackled the problem of crime not by attacking crime directly, rather by clamping down on ‘minor violations’ such as ticketless travelling and illegal graffiti.<\/p>\n

I don’t know about the rest of India, but Mumbai definitely needs its own variant of the Broken Windows theory being implemented. And, i can think of nothing better than going after drivers who break signals. The two most visible signs of law breaking in Mumbai – are<\/p>\n