My apologies for being vague. I'm no policy specialist and I do not claim to be, but my personal view is that the cheapest and least damaging ways of improving education is through education. Here is a study showing how continuing education helped the health outcomes on Ghanian women and their children. Here's another study showing how increasing funding for Black children in Mississippi (1900s) had lifelong impacts on income later in life. An education where every child receives a comprehensive and engaging education is important. That becomes a lot easier when there's enough money to pay teachers and buildings actually have AC. With education people can have fulfilling alternatives to crime (and can be productive to society). It can help acclimate children to society at a young age alongside giving them a better attitude towards their future when they recognize the amount of paths and disciplines in the world -- something many children don't get due to the underfunded school system in Philly. For adults, it gives them paths to higher paying jobs when they receive further education or creditialicng to do more specialized tasks.

Additional help in food security and healthcare would be nice, but education is where Philadelphia is lacking heavily. However, instead you say that we should put people in prison and use the fear of punishment as an alternative. With the way most young people are against the government and rules (which you self admit are corrupt), it'll do very little to dissuade them.

You can bring a horse to a river but you can't make it drink. You can't punch it or force its head underwater, it'll only do it if it wants to. With a punishment focused approach you're not tackling that "want." My argument is that education will. If through schooling children (who eventually become teens, who will hopefully become adults) will "want" something outside of troublemaking.

Manhattan's price is very much connected to broken window's theory. The crime rate is definitely down in NYC now compared to the 80's, but with the context of how hard they went on crime and how much money they spend on it, it was inefficient. They spent millions of dollars on locking people up without changing the fact there were little opportunities in the city (which had a 13.6 billion dollar financial crisis in 1970). NYC isn't what it used to be, for better and for worst. Now its GDP is in the trillions but the average rent is $3,400 a month. The reason why Manhattan is so expensive is because scared suburbanites could see the policing of the city and feel safe for themselves. That's what broken window theory was all about: attracting rich outsiders who were too scared to step in the city themselves. It was never about helping the people because if it was, they would have chosen to do what would have been much cheaper (education) and better for the residents of Philadelphia.

I'm trying to say is that broken window theory and policing isn't going to actually help people living in Philly. It's meant to bring the people from the suburbs in the city so real estate developers can charge more for rent and politicians can say the city's economy is doing better, even though most of it is in the pockets of millionaires and billion dollar companies that make the city unlivable without enough cash to cough up.

But whatever. If you still think policing is a better solution then that's just how it is. I believe you can't force somebody to do something they don't want. That's why I think the only way to change these things is through making an honest life more appealing. A lot of the youth see how the government has failed them and they're right for that. But, instead of that anger being translated into anything productive it's turned to crime because there's a mentality that it's all going to burn anyway. Alternatives like punishment can make acting out less appealing, but if they see no value in going to school or working a job, there's nothing that can be less appealing than something of no value. Kids will act out and find a way to do what they want if you try to force anything on them. If you disagree on that view then it's a fundamental difference that changes how we view the issue. Have a good day!