... and the bandwagon makes its last stop at my front door. This book has been very popular and widely read -- rightly so -- it presents a new way to see how the world changes in an accessible format. Basically the book covers a variety of examples of epidemics, of sudden, often unexpected changes in culture, crime or prevalent attitudes and traces them to the idea of the Tipping Point. We usually use this term to describe the moment when the tides turn: "The tipping point came when the Canucks killed off a 5 on 3 penalty in the 3rd." Gladwell's usage is different, and if I criticize one point of his book, it was that his alternate usage wasn't totally clear to me until I had read most of the book. For him, the Point is not the moment of shift, but the place, the fulcrum upon which the tilt happens, and how, if a little pressure is applied at this place, dramatic change can occur.

One of his examples came from crime in New York in 80s. A new police chief came to town at the height of violence and instead of cracking down on the violent crimes he focussed on the subway. All of the cars were stripped of graffiti and weren't allowed to operate with any on them, cops patrolled the stations more frequently and groups of 10 plainclothes cops lurked at ticket gates to bust farecheaters. The results were stunning - a 66% drop in crime over the next decade. Why?

Gladwell spends most of his book outlining the reasons, but there were a few main points:
--Grafitti, a slight offense, establishes an atmosphere for further crimes, as does farecheating. If something small is permitted, something bigger will be attempted. Arresting and charging ordinary people who tried to escape paying fares established zero tolerance from the ground up, not between violent and more violent crimes.
--Arrests at ticket gates nabbed a lot of wanted felons, taking them off the street, and forced other minor felons to be straight, at least for the subway, thereby encouraging further honest behavior.
--By focussing police attention on the subway instead of violent crime, the city government removed one of the primary environments and breeding grounds for violent crime.

That's pretty much it. Without gobs of extra cash or personnel, the fortunes of NY City were reversed with the right kind of pressure applied to the right place. I really enjoyed his writing, and compared to the poetry I have been slogging through, it was breezy, fascinating stuff. His book also made me think differently about how my own mind works, as well as consider how a few people, with the right message, at the right time and place, can fundamentally change the world. If the concept of a cultural epidemic can be understood, maybe it can be harnessed and directed for the common good, which is the challenge Gladwell leaves us with.