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Sometimes it’s the little things

This isn’t just spring – it is also the dawn of construction season in Minot, and it is pothole season. As illustrated in Minot Daily News, potholes are common in Minot and a nuisance to many.

However, potholes are an example of “nuisance” issues that can easily evolve into much more than that. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani demonstrated this during his time in office, focusing on things like potholes, cracked windows, dirty streets etc. By addressing these minor issues, the theory was that they could not snowball into worse ones and would foster an environment in which even such petty things were intolerable. It worked even in the big city and reinforces a wise observation some make: a house can sit empty for a long time without there being a problem, but the moment a window gets cracked, it is the beginning of the end.

Other cities of all sizes should have taken note of the success and the subsequent deterioration in New York when the policies were reversed. Maintaining roads is one of the few essential legitimate functions of government, far removed from the machinations of dependency breeding and behavioral mod that make up much of what government does today.

Minot can certainly learn from successes elsewhere. Simple quality of life issues such as potholes, basic maintenance, broken windows might seem like small responsibilities, but they are not. Instead, they are frontline concerns that affect everyday residents on a constant basis and, ignored, inevitably fester and lead to harsher concerns. As always, we hope for the best and pray for wise leadership.

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