a den of iniquity and vice

This an addition to the Ashby Free Public Library by Ted Galante. This post has nothing to do about this particular work of architecture, but rather a recent article in the Boston Globe about how some small towns in central Mass. have experienced an increase in crime. I'm skeptical that things are going completely to hell in places like Ashby, and I'm also not surprised that crooks from Gardner and Fitchburg would seek out these quiet locales to do drug deals. After all, people in small towns tend to mind their own business and respect other people's privacy as a matter of course.

Small towns have been romanticized and criticized for hundreds of years, particularly in American Literature. Cities tend to have much higher rates of crime across the boards than rural areas, but the scale difference makes rural areas more prone to statistical aberrations. Also, poor communication about some  bad things that are probably going on may depress the actual extent of problems.

I've read in various places that crime and violent deaths has dropped significantly since humans moved from clan and tribal living to larger, more bureaucratic societies. I can empathize with John Adams when he stated how he wanted a nation governed by laws, not men. We sometimes just go crazy, and without the threat of an institutional response, we have less incentive to keep ourselves and others under control.