Oakland's Experiment In Anarchy Authored by Sanjana Friedman via City Journal , What would happen to a city if its government effectively stopped enforcing laws protecting public space and private property? Oakland, California, has been testing the proposition.
Many have heard about Oakland's extraordinarily high violent-crime rate, which, despite recent declines, remains roughly four and a half times the national rate and the worst among California's big cities. But in recent years, the city has also struggled to enforce laws against illegal dumping, burglary, car break-ins, and squatting .
Photo by Tayfun CoÅkun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images As a result, much of the city is "buried under trash," according to a recent government report , which found that the city collects some 20 million pounds of illegally dumped debris - 47 pounds per resident - annually.
Oakland also has the highest level of property crime of any large U.S. city. It solves these crimes at a rate of just 0.1 perce