Are Progressives to Blame for Urban Disorder? (w/ Hayes Davenport)
Added 2025-01-05 16:42:24 +0000 UTCDue to popular demand, we've unlocked this episode for non-subscribers; it's now available on all podcast platforms as well as here on Patreon. Feel free to share far and wide.
Right wing movements thrive by cultivating fears of disorder. Conservatives depict blue cities as sites of rampant crime, chaos, and iniquity. And often enough, it is progressives — with their overdeveloped empathy and concern for the poor and criminalized — who take the blame. Recently, a rising chorus of voices on the center-left, including figures like Ezra Klein, have embraced the thesis that perceptions of disorder in cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have contributed to America’s rightward turn. But is that accurate? And can anything be done about it?
In this episode, Sam is joined by organizer, writer, and podcaster Hayes Davenport to discuss his experiences fighting against this sort of backlash in Los Angeles. As soon as Hayes had helped his friend Nithya Raman get elected to the LA City Council in 2020 and joined her staff, conservative forces in city government mobilized to thwart her pro-tenant agenda and blame the tiny faction of progressives on the council for rising crime and homelessness. How did they respond? What can the past few years in LA politics teach the American left? And can we imagine a leftist politics that short-circuits the right’s effort to use disorder to undermine our efforts to address its underlying causes: government neglect, poverty, and exploitation. We discuss!
Further Reading:
Hayes Davenport, "Ezra Klein is wrong about this," Big City Heat, Dec 9, 2024.
— "Violent crime is down. Why are so many people mad about it?" Big City Heat, Dec 16, 2024.
— "Sects on the Beach: The 2024 Santa Monica City Council Race," Big City Heat, Nov 1, 2024.
— "The Last LA Election When Crime Was Going Up For Real," Big City Heat, Nov 11, 2024.
Emily Badger & Alicia Parlapiano, "Is the Urban Shift Toward Trump Really About Democratic Cities in Disarray?" NY Times, Dec 6, 2024.
Jill Cowan, Serge F. Kovaleski, & Leanne Abraham, "How a New City Council Map of L.A. Turned Into a Political Brawl," NY Times, Sept 3, 2023.
Koko Nakakjima & Phi Do, "California and Los Angeles County are getting tougher on crime. Here are the maps that show it," LA Times, Dec 30, 2024.
Jay Caspian Kang, "Who Really Controls Local Politics?" NY Times, Oct 11, 2021.
— "How Homeowners’ Associations Get Their Way in California," NY Times, Oct 14, 2021.
— "A Leader They Didn’t Choose," NY Times, Oct 18, 2021.
Subscribe to Hayes's podcast: Hollywood Handbook and Friends.
Comments
I suspect that date may be a one-off...
Jerry Callen
2025-02-06 02:09:16 +0000 UTCI just got home from a date with a German guy who said “the problem with Hitler is he had no plan for the economy and we had to suffer as a country for the next 40 years. He had a plan for the migrants, but not the economy.” And I just needed to post it somewhere strangers would be as appalled as I am.
Nicole F.
2025-01-19 05:31:09 +0000 UTCI enjoyed the episode and applaud Hayes efforts. That said, I felt it didnt really address the “Ezra Klein criticism”. Much of politics is perception combined with personal anecdote. Just as the recent fire in LA demonstrates, elected leaders need to be seen as competent, be authoritative to avoid a vacuum of misinformation, and able to manage crisis. I think a lot of these progressives, especially in California, seem to fall short. Yes, there are myriad micro economic reasons re homelessness and crime, but the average citizen cant do much about that so it falls to elected officials to either solve the issue or give the perception that things are moving in the right direction. As an example, why was the mayor of LA in Ghana? She is an elected city official not a diplomat. If I was a LA voter I would have to question what is going on.
Sierra
2025-01-11 17:23:18 +0000 UTC"I'm as left as anyone" goes on to speak about people suffering like trash on the street lmao
Rai
2025-01-10 19:38:02 +0000 UTCre: the intro - in what world are progressives advocating for an "laissez-faire" approach to homelessness and disorder? yea, many people are saying we shouldn't put homeless people and black teenagers in interment camps, but that is not the same of advocating for "doing nothing". housing first, harm reduction, needle exchanges, defund (and reallocating) police budgets, changes to zoning laws, and much more have all been floated. none of that is "nothing".
Rai
2025-01-10 19:36:21 +0000 UTCThank you!!
Alex Marinides
2025-01-10 14:53:59 +0000 UTCIt's unlocked now! Thanks for your support, Alex. - Sam
Know Your Enemy
2025-01-10 14:04:11 +0000 UTCOh yeah Nithya Raman. My DSA chapter just voted to join the call for her removal from DSA for accepting support from Democrats for Israel and other zionist orgs on top of some other stuff. Very happily voted in favor of the resolution.
Byron Lopez
2025-01-08 19:25:48 +0000 UTCLove the ep -- just to note, the url to the Patreon in y'all's episode descriptions is linked to a specific episode not the main page. Incase you're moved to change that
Eleanor Ford
2025-01-08 17:06:17 +0000 UTCGreat episode. It’s so important for the left to have something to say about things like public safety that’s neither triangulation nor laissez-faire. Helpful stuff, thanks!
Chris Maisano
2025-01-08 15:41:38 +0000 UTCWould love for this episode to be removed from the behind the paywall if possible--I work for a progressive NYS legislator and I know that my colleagues who handle housing and mental health issues would find this immensely helpful. And many other staffers and organizers I know would find this conversation enlightening.
Alex Marinides
2025-01-07 21:04:03 +0000 UTCI would love a deeper discussion on housing. [Thinking The Pruitt-Igoe Myth doc] I usually look to the Coalition on Homelessness for solutions in SF. As a citizen who is mostly involved in school and public health issues, I trust them to guide policy I should support. The YIMBY Market-rate, vs YIMBY Below market-rate, vs YIMBY Public, vs NIMBY housing discussions are exhausted in this "liberal" city. We have empty office skyscrapers by the dozen, empty third residences, and people without roofs over their heads. IMHO some radical eminent domain with a comprehensive "Housing First" policy needs to happen. We opened a temporary housing shelter at my kids' school, (A HUGE fight) because we had housing insecurity of 1 to 2 students per class in our K-8. It was "successful". The program housed our families, and got extended to the rest of the district families. It is by no means a solution. And the facilities at Salesforce tower would be WAY better than our deteriorating school with lead in the water. https://hechingerreport.org/a-shelter-in-a-school-gym-for-students-experiencing-homelessness-paid-off-in-classrooms/
Sam Murphy
2025-01-07 18:29:38 +0000 UTCfwiw, we intended for this episode to address precisely your dissatisfaction: including that the (sometimes) "left"-coded response "just don't do anything; leave it alone," is not sufficient, and indeed exacerbates the conditions that help our enemies win. But of course there's always more to say. Thanks for your input. -Sam
Know Your Enemy
2025-01-07 17:31:10 +0000 UTCMan talk about reinforcing biases… I have learned to not say in polite company that cops hold cities hostage by not doing their jobs, but fuck if it ain’t true.
DJM
2025-01-07 15:06:17 +0000 UTCI’m a longtime listener and erratic subscriber, with politics practically identical to the hosts. Only one thing I didn’t like, when Sam said something about people on the right wanting to “erase these people from existence.” I have no respect for shallow hyperbole. I’m as left as anyone, but how much empathy must I have to not be a reactionary asshole? Today is my last day of a holiday trip home to Los Angeles from DC. The state of the city appalled me. I’m no saint. After six and a half years in DC I’ve begun losing patience. You get to a point where you just get tired of having to deal with these people. Davenport’s description of the program that worked is encouraging. Raise my taxes if that’s what’s needed. But I ain’t gonna feel guilty about wanting people who are in this miserable state to at least disappear from where I have to live because I’m not rich. In a month I’ll be moving to San Francisco because of work, and I recently watched three Peter Santenello videos about San Francisco, from three years ago, two years ago, and about two months ago. I don’t know if progressive policies cause disorder or not, and this episode was not long enough to answer the question. But I resonated with something he said. “Leaving people to rot on the street is not compassion.” Sam is right: The right thrives on fear of disorder. Which means we who call ourselves “left” (political economy left, not posturing, virtue signaling left) must be willing to be forthright in seeking both order and fairness.
J Kepler
2025-01-07 03:40:17 +0000 UTClax traffic enforcement seems to be a problem on much of the US now, & people are dying in droves for it (recent stats are appalling). had our town's police liasion come to the city advisory board i serve on, & all he could do is grovel w/ weak excuses & throw up his hands
boo
2025-01-07 02:46:03 +0000 UTCThis shit boils my blood. Traffic deaths have ballooned since Covid to the point that we even had a reasonably famous star athlete, Johnny Gaudreau, killed by a reckless motorist. But somehow this is the acceptable violence that never gets made into a national narrative, while a handful of incidents in the subway — a vastly safer form of transportation than driving — become fixations of right wing media.
Matthew
2025-01-07 02:19:37 +0000 UTCI subscribed long ago but cancelled when I realized that this podcast was about books. But now that it’s a steamy sauna of leftist podcast bros I wait feverishly for each episode. And Matthew return. Oh he’s coming! Nosferatu!!
Sam
2025-01-06 19:05:17 +0000 UTCAt the municipal level, fiscally conservative = socially conservative. Anything that helps poor people gets cut. Anything that punishes poor people is funded. Plus billions for roads while transit fares increase.
Tyler Paziuk
2025-01-06 18:41:06 +0000 UTCThat's precisely why I despise people who park on the sidewalk.
Tyler Paziuk
2025-01-06 18:36:35 +0000 UTCEzra Klein's recent episode about urban disorder was mind-boggling. The conservative writer he had on defined disorder, e.g. a person sleeping on the sidewalk, as something like "appropriating public space for private benefit" -- i.e. literally the goal of all conservative policy.
Sebastian Lecourt
2025-01-06 18:03:48 +0000 UTCDefinitely didn't expect a collab between the KYE and HH boys, but I am here for it lol
Henry Martyn
2025-01-06 16:27:43 +0000 UTCThank you so much for your detailed response!! You definitely did engage with it when you discussed the police cutting back enforcement out of mere petulance (an alarming trend I’ve seen in multiple cities that sadly nobody seems to have an effective answer for, yet gets blamed on the left). And your description of “punishing people out of your jurisdiction” is exactly how I would describe far too many cities’ response to this crisis, the one directly coming to mind being Scottsdale in AZ. They have no interest in actually helping people and just arrest them and push them to other parts of town (which, yes, has made the entire crisis more difficult and unmanageable, and yes, gets blamed on the left even though it’s the result of the police and right leaning city counsels). Work like yours truly reveals that the right’s calls for defending these public spaces aren’t actually rooted in care for public rights, but a desire to dehumanize/demonize the unhoused (an urge I admittedly need to fight against from time to time). And to be clear, I don’t mean to pile on the blame of the left for this predicament — my biggest concern is just message management and perception, which can be extremely difficult for the left for reasons we have no control over. But I find your answer very reassuring, and I’ll be happy to point out work like yours the next time I discuss this issue with people in my community.
Burdperson
2025-01-06 15:35:05 +0000 UTCAnd I should also say that it's so so obvious that cops don't care about traffic violence or bylaw enforcement...which is why we should defund them.
Tyler Paziuk
2025-01-06 15:11:49 +0000 UTCRides that mic like a hurricane…
Sam
2025-01-06 15:07:13 +0000 UTCSome of your guests are not so great on the mic. Unlike this hot piece of ass. Amazing guest.
Sam
2025-01-06 15:02:00 +0000 UTCVery pleased to hear Hayes talk about traffic violence. For many urban dwellers, this is a bigger problem - and longer-standing problem - than homelessness or public substance abuse. Traffic violence is a danger to far more people than either! And, for me, it is "disorder" in the same way those other things are to pearl-clutching suburban conservatives who never come downtown anyway.
Tyler Paziuk
2025-01-06 14:59:37 +0000 UTCIs this guy the "I YIELD MY TIME, FUCK YOU" guy? Great ep :: nvm voice not similar. It's been a while lol
Roflmaocopter
2025-01-06 10:11:23 +0000 UTCso glad to hear it, Alec - Sam
Know Your Enemy
2025-01-06 04:11:24 +0000 UTCFantastic episode.
Marshall Steinbaum
2025-01-06 03:25:07 +0000 UTCYes to the future episode Sam mentions ~43:00 on police and politics…. specifically on the reality of “more money for fewer police doing less of what people want.” Actually I’d love to see you all dig into the increasingly contested space / topic of municipal budgeting and how it is cracking up popular assumptions about “fiscal conservatism & accountability”… LA and California- home of prop 13- could be a good focus.
Little Beruit Dweller
2025-01-06 02:38:45 +0000 UTCAs a regular listener of both KYE and of the show Hayes used to cohost, LA Podcast, this is a delightful crossover! I first started listening to KYE out of an interest in the literary and political theory conversations (I'm a political theorist with a somewhat similar academic background to Matt's). But recently I've really come to appreciate the conversations about progressive politics, too. As someone who's aligned most often with the center left, rather than the left left or the right, I find that KYE expands my political horizons in both directions of the traditional ideological spectrum.
Alec Arellano
2025-01-06 02:05:26 +0000 UTCGreat episode! Ty.
Isabella
2025-01-06 00:29:25 +0000 UTCHaven't listened to the actual episode and I know about a half hour was cut out because I went very long -- but I definitely meant to engage with this question! Some of the most front-facing orgs on the left in LA DID shift towards a light-touch "we keep us safe" approach to homelessness advocacy, especially during the pandemic, in response to a city government that had been emphasizing camping bans as its response to homelessness. At the same time police departments/unions pulled back on enforcement of quality of life offenses, even in communities where elected leaders were demanding more arrests -- a shift that was also blamed on the left. These trends converged to throw gasoline on the backlash. Progressives were painted as holding back any response to homelessness while the right was nobly trying to intervene. But there's no reason for the left to accept that framing! The office I worked for took a very aggressive interventionist response against homelessness, got hundreds of people indoors, and resolved the public space conflicts you describe in dozens of locations around our district out of a belief that they should be shared by everyone. We didn't implement any bans on camping, but we also didn't oppose enforcement against crime or basic spatial management, especially to ensure that sidewalks were navigable (something I worked on the vast majority of times I did outreach at an encampment). What I'm against is the approach of deploying enforcement against the condition of homelessness as a substitute for housing, shelter, and treatment, in hopes that you can just punish people out of your jurisdiction. You end up just having to do more enforcement while the population on the street continues to grow -- it costs a huge amount of money, it makes the hard work harder, and ultimately nobody is better for it.
Hayes Davenport
2025-01-05 23:27:47 +0000 UTCGot a chance to listen and really loved this. So nice to hear about actual things people have done/can do to improve their communities and the lives of people around them. It definitely gave me something to hold onto in 2025. By the way, my (close) friend is the guy who's done a lot of HH merch designs over the years, including the Hat Pack hat. Listening to the ep had me thinking... I would love a Sam & Matt Pack hat one of these days!! KYE merch time??
marshall beckrich
2025-01-05 23:04:33 +0000 UTCI greatly enjoyed listening to this, particularly Hayes’ description of the concrete results his work has gotten in spite of all the obstacles. It’s heartening to hear the successful efforts to assist the mentally ill and unhoused off our streets and into secure living situations, and even more so that the public appreciates these efforts once they’re realized. But what I find sorely missing from these discussions about “urban disorder” is the almost complete lack of any talk of, or defense for, public rights, namely the right of the people to clean spaces free from violent or anti-social conduct and how that right is protected via law enforcement. I think a major reason the left has an image issue is that it never fully recovered from its mistakes in 2019/20 after the CHAZ/CHOP fiasco and the politically disastrous “abolish the police”campaign. And oftentimes when I hear people talk about urban discord, the people emphasizing the public’s right to clean and safe spaces are closer to the right, while the left, however admirably, tends to prioritize the right of the mentally ill and unhoused to be present in public spaces at the expense of the rights of the public (do we all remember the Daniel Penny/Jordan Neeley tragedy?). I don’t believe there is any incompatibility between providing generous housing and support for the unhoused and mentally ill and enforcing laws in public spaces to ensure basic cleanliness and sanitation (sorry, but I have walked by some of these tent cities in Phoenix, Seattle, and LA and they are clearly dangerous and inhumane places, first and foremost to the poor people living in them that desperately need help). But the way these discussions are framed, whether due to a mistake by the left or crafty framing by the right, these two priorities are oftentimes viewed as fundamentally incompatible, and the left is constantly seen as disregarding the concerns of average people in pursuit of a political project that enables antisocial behavior. To me it seems the left has a problem with valorizing society’s victims past a point where it is politically workable, and is crudely dismissive to the wants and desires of average people to public cleanliness and order as callous, inhumane, or outright decadent (my views echo Susan Neiman’s, who develops this perspective in her book Left is Not Woke). But it isn’t callous or decadent to want to maintain clean and safe subways, parks, and streets, services which the public is entitled to and which disproportionately benefit society’s poorest and most vulnerable members. And these valuable public spaces will still require help from law enforcement (armed and unarmed) to protect even if we largely address the homelessness issue. Ceding the territory of public rights, public safety, and law enforcement to the political right is a recipe for political irrelevance.
Burdperson
2025-01-05 22:42:25 +0000 UTCAll is forgiven, Greg. Bobby, on the other hand... still on my shit list.
Know Your Enemy
2025-01-05 21:20:23 +0000 UTCAs a resident of Philadelphia, where we see ALL the nuances laid out here, this was rewarding and hopeful to hear.
Sam D.
2025-01-05 20:53:28 +0000 UTCSorry that supporting the show took a Hayes appearance and not meeting Sam several times over 10+ years
Greg Hunter
2025-01-05 20:33:10 +0000 UTCWonderful <3
marshall beckrich
2025-01-05 20:06:50 +0000 UTC"the WICKEDLY talented, Misha Berkler"
Know Your Enemy
2025-01-05 19:59:29 +0000 UTCI hate to say this a a man of the left, but two big pieces missing from many homelessness discussions are local land use regulations and the bond market with high federal deficits. Most cities in the U.S. face extreme housing shortages in part resulting from local land use regulations (zoning, design standards, etc.) that restrict the number of housing units that can be built in a given area. Many existing homeowners are NIMBYs that don’t want the “character” of their neighborhoods to change, and many cities base their zoning policies on such desires. White-only zoning also claimed the same “race neutral” desire to keep non-whites out. The bond markets have been able to buy a lot of federal bonds due to huge deficits. This deficit spending ballooning since COVID has meant that other investments such as mortgages aren’t as relatively attractive to bond investors. Deficits aren’t really a left-right issue: both tax cuts and spending do grow the deficit.
Chad Bailey
2025-01-05 19:22:14 +0000 UTCExcited to listen to this one. I had my name Travoltafied on Flagrant Ones a while back, but now I’m hearing it done in Matt’s hoarse Rome voice and intrigued by the possibility of another crossover…
marshall beckrich
2025-01-05 19:21:50 +0000 UTC<3 <3
Know Your Enemy
2025-01-05 19:18:07 +0000 UTCit's all connected, baby
Know Your Enemy
2025-01-05 19:16:24 +0000 UTCSeeing this title pop into my feed gave me a Keyser Söze moment, flashing back to left-field “fourth turning” references on HH.
Joe
2025-01-05 18:55:25 +0000 UTCAs an Angeleno Nithya voter I really appreciated this ep. Thx for the introduction to Hayes’ work, he’s fantastic
Reggie Debris
2025-01-05 18:37:51 +0000 UTCA man of the most refined taste, I see.
Know Your Enemy
2025-01-05 16:56:15 +0000 UTCYeah just jumping in before listening to say Hayes is the best
Aaron Lee
2025-01-05 16:48:53 +0000 UTCI can't believe there is a collab between my fav smart podcast and my fav stupid podcast. I love you and I'm in love with you.
Dallas Jokic
2025-01-05 16:45:36 +0000 UTC
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