I Litter, therefore I am

India has a littering problem. That’s no secret. Is the situation salvageable? A couple of policy proposals that could make an impact.

Introduction

Before his descent into MAGA madness, Mayor Rudy Giuliani led New York City, most famously, perhaps, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers.

Rudy Giuliani (as imagined by Stable Diffusion)

Even before he gained fame as America’s Mayor after the attacks, he was credited with taming New York’s streets through “Broken Windows” policing.

“Broken Windows” policing holds that visible signs of civil breakdown — like people panhandling or flagrantly flouting traffic rules — lead to worse criminality and disorder in the long run.

Giuliani told the NYPD to target low level, petty crimes like jaywalking and loitering which supposedly led to an across the board reduction in crime.

Of course, the effectiveness of Broken Windows has famously been challenged by contrarian economists in their book Freakonomics which said that crime rates fell all across America during the 1990s, even in cities where Broken Windows policing was not in use. They, in turn, credit unleaded gasoline with declining crime rates across the globe.

I bring this up to discuss the possibility of using Broken Windows to combat India’s never ending fight with public…