Books: The Fires by Joe Flood (2010)

The subtitle of this book is "How a computer formula, big ideas, and the best of intentions burned down New York City- and determined the future of Cities."   I found this book a fascinating look at the relatively recent history of New York, and how, focusing on the New York City Fire Department, it demonstrates eloquently how public policy can go so disastrously wrong.  In a period from the mid 1960s to 1980, New York and especially blighted areas such as the South Bronx became the unwitting guinea pigs for a series of highly sophisticated plans to save money and at the same time improve fire protection in a massive city with an aging infrastructure.  The changes were equal parts wishful thinking, academic arrogance, and decisions made at a far remove from the grim reality on the ground.  

To begin with there are some descriptions of some memorable

The Waldbaum's Fire, 1978

urban fires that demonstrate vividly how truly dangerous the work of a fireman can be.  The Waldbaum's Supermarket fire of August 2, 1978, which is described in the opening of the book is a vivid example.  This was in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn.   There cheap construction and the concealment within the building superstructure of a fire trapped beneath the ceiling and the false double roof led to an explosion and collapse of the roof of the building, and the deaths of six firemen.  It was one of the worst losses of firemen in New York Fire Department history, which was made even worse by the deliberate decision to delay the second alarm until after 9 a.m. when the next shift would go on duty as a way of saving on overtime pay.  That is, because the fire took place at the very end of a shift, a serious fire could cost the department a lot of overtime pay.

In the mid 1970s the city of New York had a serious budget problem.  The decay of poorer neighborhoods, the escalating racial tensions of areas such as Harlem, and the Bronx, and the high handed approach of city planners such as

Robert Moses

Robert Moses in the building and reshaping of the city of New York led inexorably to the financial crisis in which it found itself in the mid 1970s.  White flight to the suburbs, a worsening crime and housing epidemic and the driving out of an industrial tax base in certain parts of the city, along with generous labor contracts to public safety workers led inevitably to a budget crisis and near bankruptcy in the 1970s.  Fire prevention cost money and the need for fire prevention fell disproportionately on poorer neighborhoods in older and more fire susceptible buildings.   At the same time the need to balance the budget for public safety led to cutbacks on protection and how these cutbacks were implemented made matters even worse. 

Enter the RAND corporation.  As a non-profit think tank it began shortly after the second world war to work in areas of defense and strategy.  It later branched out into other governmental areas as diverse as criminal justice, social welfare, urban problems, and even arts policy.    Its forte was mathematical analysis, game theory, and modeling of complex problems.  Unfortunately for the mathematical modeling done for New York City fire protection, it gave a scientific cover for a nonsensical public policy wherein fire companies were closed in the areas that most needed the protection.

The South Bronx

As the south Bronx began to burn some accused the city government of racism and bias against the poorest neighborhoods, but all they had to do was point to the mathematical modeling that the RAND corporation had done for them to dispel this notion.  The decline in fire protection in the the late 1970s led to the wholesale destruction of many buildings and leaving the place half empty with large gaps in the landscape.    Some policy wonks even suggested that they should bulldoze the rest and rebuild the place completely. 

John Lindsay

This took place during the mayoralties of John Lindsay (1966-1974), Abe Beame (1974-1977) and Ed Koch (1978-1989).   Lindsay was a Kennedy-esque figure who was swept into office on a reformist wave in 1966.  Though a Republican he was, as most Republicans are in New York, merely Liberals who chose to run against Tammany Hall.  Lindsay brought in the same "Whiz Kids" from RAND corporation that Kennedy had introduced with Robert McNamara in the Department of Defense. 

John T. O'Hagan

At the same time, young, energetic John T. O'Hagan rose to become fire commissioner.  It was a high point in the faith in scientific idealism applied to public policy to fix the problems of government. 

People and large organizations have often been deluded by their intellectual arrogance.  One cannot from a brilliant hypothesis create fact without first putting it to the experiment.  After the experiment conclusions are drawn, not before. 

Joe Flood

And it is also true that an experiment is best done on a small scale before investing huge amounts of resources to changing things on a large scale, but this fact seems to have escaped the powers that existed in New York City.  The budgetary crisis notwithstanding, they should have known better.