Source: Marginal REVOLUTION
A 37% drop in Oakland break-ins means fewer shattered windows and stolen stereos for residents, but auto repair shops dependent on that crime-driven demand face collapsing revenues. Crime reduction doesn't simply improve welfare across the board; it redistributes it. The piece invokes Bastiat's broken window fallacy to ask whether public safety gains should be celebrated when they crater businesses built on the downstream effects of crime, surfacing the reality that many local economies contain dependencies on disorder. Improvement for one group (car owners) creates real economic pain for another (repair shops and their workers), forcing a harder conversation about who bears the cost of progress.