The theory of all broken

They were invited to one of the galleries in Artplay - an exhibition with good friends. Approaching the tunnel under the railway line in the rawies (a place ritually adored by the "tramas" - here the only splashment of the paths preserved in the city, for a hundred years), found traces of multidirectional human activity. The building resembling aqueduct is intensely repaired. The forests reached the walnut shell of the vault. Personally, I was pretty not like how they hid an old, picturesque brick - instead of highlighting it, protruding, emphasizing age. It is very noticeable how for several days the graffitter in a row, nullifying the efforts of malyars and plasters, diligently thundered the territory that they consider their own. It was easier to immediately give the tunnel of designer youth from the British design school, located two steps, immediately over a bend. At least for a miserable imitation of New York rateers, there would be no place left. The proposed would be some aesthetic experience.

The layout of the cultural layer on the wall showed a multi -day unequal struggle - at the command of the authorities, the inscriptions were smeared, painted over, and again arose, and already in the neighborhood.

He stood, put his hands in his pockets, walked away, whistled, examining the exposition, and now he was ready to propose a brief reconstruction of events. Unstructured teenagers ("Shkolota pampering") at first hesitated their "Vasya was here." Then the beginning graffitors started the “team” and their nickname. Fast-post-Bitnik romantics program: "Dude Can Fly!" ("Dude, you can fly!"). Then the valiant professional representatives of the subculture appeared, they have their own matrix. Do not ask why there is no anniversary "Tsoi!" But the struggle against the bullying of graffiti ended in sacramental and pretty political - "blind power."

And here the Malyars broke. Apparently from solidarity. Nervously today lives the bosses: we must report on the repair, and then night raids. The tunnel looks like the back of a sore husky dog ​​- with bald spots, unless it doesn’t itch. Generally speaking, the White Movement has a great prospect of splating out not so much on the streets as on the walls of houses - will be like in Santiago, in Madrid or Harlem. Graffiti protest is an interesting topic for a separate conversation.

The message to the city landscape always provokes, being simultaneously an obvious marker of abandonment, unnecessaryness, detachment and draw. There is no ability to make other changes - only with a spray paint. One inscription should appear - Samdall reminds, describing the tunnel in the Bolshoi Poloslavsky Lane exactly - others immediately arise. And whatever provokes of the rateers - the symbolic meaning of the object (ROOS) or the struggle against injustice, provoking destructive actions (Baron and Fisher), revenge, anger, boredom or game - who will outplay whom - graffiti clearly play the role of broken glasses.

And what is not broken now, however?

Vandalism or new Dutszybao, establishing the functions of communication between the busy, neighboring, but never intersecting groups - not so much the problem of theoretical approaches as the attitude to the process in the instability of the urban environment.

Broken glass

The space that they see is not the space that is observed and analyzed - once read from the tower.

The general place when they talk about social practices in the city, was the Dutch experiment proving the behavioral theorem of Wilson and Kellling - the “theory of broken windows” . I recall it, it is customary to reproduce it as follows: “If someone broke the glass in the house, and no one inserted a new one, then soon not a single window in this house will remain.” The site for the experiment is a bicycle parking near the store. Pure, perfect wall. Only the urns are removed. And on the steering wheel of parked bicycles, advertising leaflets are hung. And every third cyclist in his hearts threw them to the ground, sat in the saddle and pressed the pedals, without looking back at the disorder left. Then the wall was disfigured by the graphs -graphs - drawings, inscriptions - everything, as usual. And after that, advertising leaflets have already scattered 69 % of cyclists ...

“The theory of broken windows” worked in 1982, when it was introduced to the city and the world, it works today. If the opportunity is left to violate the rules, they will be violated (in essence, one of the laws of Murphy is also about this: if something can be done wrong, there is always a person who will do this). It's all about obvious and obvious, demonstrative - for show! -Signs of indifference to the wrongdoing, and the entropy of the mess immediately jumps out with the gop-stop around the corner and covers everything around. At first, glass is knocked out, then looting begins, and it is impossible to go out into the street in a very near future - you live like in a siege. And the police can no longer cope.

Gladwell’s work on social epidemics “The turning point” is also well known. A person violates the law not only (and not so much) because of poor heredity or improper upbringing, and not because he is confident in his apron: he will dodge and avoid punishment. The most important is what he sees around. The context of the existence of an individual comes to the fore.

Two practices, the spontaneous follower of the “theory of broken glasses”, put things in order in the New York subway. The head of the metro David Gann was a terrible pedant: they said to him - go about business, and he stubbornly demanded to wash off graffiti every night, struggling with progressive vandalism. He built washing points and began to release only clean compositions on the line. William Bratton, the head of the transport police, despite the criticism and wars of the press, focused on a large -scale hunt for freezers. “Hares”, he believed, is a signal to the lack of order, and it is no coincidence that their number, according to the most modest estimates, exceeded 170 thousand daily. Teenagers jumped up or overcame the turnstiles, made their way to a “train” of two or three people. “Peaceful” passengers, guided by logic, willingly and jokingly nailed to them - they can, but I can’t? Ten dressed cops were assigned to the turnstiles. Caught freezers in handcuffs were built on the platform for public display. After that they were loaded with a police bus, searched, dactyloscopied, “pierced” to involve previously committed crimes. It turned out that many of them with weapons and the wanted list. Braton under the mayor of Juliani was appointed chief of the city’s police. He spread the strategy to the entire metropolis: each petty offense became punishable. And again, a nervous reaction, talk about incompetence and false purposes. But the crime rate began to suddenly decline - having collapsed significantly, he continued to fall, despite the absurdity of the endless nit -picking of the police. The criminal New York was concluded through the crime researchers, by the end of the 1990s it became the safest metropolis of America.

The vice of tradition

Inaccessible, as a mountain peak, remains for the Muscovite the ability to influence the decisions of the city authorities. Hence the observed sensation of the "noioe" of the city. Neither residents nor power can prevail, and it is impossible to imagine their cooperation. In the Moscow metro, evil aunts scream into the microphone: "Come one one at a time!" - But who will listen? Everyone understands: to chase a white ribbon is easier than restoring order - in an uncomfortable, cramped and stuffy metro or on city roads - you need to configure inexpensive parking lots and introduce the parking lots, and these are such stresses ...

The city dweller is inconvenient, convenient for the official. I don’t know a single case when social psychologists - domestic, foreign - urbanists are not listening to the discussion of a managerial decision. The official yesterday, today and tomorrow knows better what to do and how. Civil activists are not omnipotent, they achieved the right to self -realization, but they were completely deprived of the opportunity to achieve constructive and radical changes. The phrase "city community" sounds only at conferences.

That's exactly why the paths are asphalt according to the general plan of the development of the territory, and not in areas, convenient people. Miserable lawns are broken around them, and a sign “Do not walk on lawns” appears. The grass, of course, is trampled. The place turns into a parade ground for combat training. Then the garbage appears.

Another grass is planted on European or American malls, you can not only walk along it, but even lie on it, dropping tight shoes. Our city, clamping in the vice of a city dweller, squeezes something very important out of it, like from a tube. And then it does not make up for anything. Hence the paint from the spray can, released under high pressure. The syntax of the wall message in such conditions is unheard, does not contain poetic secrets, it is inaccurate - but is it necessary to demand this from it? Evidence of disorder, uninhabited, revenge of the city landscape.

A city intended for making money is deprived of the necessary usability for life. Personally, I explain to this all that sounds everywhere: "I love Moscow, but it is impossible to live in it!"