Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast.

This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on today's show is Charles Fane Lehman. He's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute

and a contributing editor of City Journal, where his work is focused on policing,

public safety, and drug abuse, among other issues. His writing has also appeared in a number of

other publications, including The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, National Affairs,

National Review, and other top publications. Today, we're going to be discussing his story from our

winter issue inside the East Coast's largest open-air drug market, which is a deep look into the

nightmarish conditions in Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood.

So, Charles, thanks very much for coming up.

Absolutely. Always happy to be here.

You went to Kensington yourself to report on the situation there, and it is truly grim,

but I wonder if you could just describe what the experience was like and what you saw,

and even with what you knew going in that the experience was like and what you saw. And even with what

you knew going in, that this was a kind of notorious area comparable to Skid Row in L.A., did anything

surprise you about what you saw in terms of the realities on the ground? You know, in a certain sense,

if you've seen one drug market, you've seen them all. But then in another sense, they're always still sort of a shocking experience. I've, you'd have been around to two or three of these at this point. Kensington's drug market looks a lot like many others, and I should say for context to the listeners, you know, the Kensington drug markets, it's the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. It is, as you alluded to, by many accounts, at least the largest open-air drug mark on the East Coast, possibly in the United States, depends on how you count. But so, it looks exactly like a drug market does. There are people everywhere using drugs very openly, very publicly. I remember we were walking down the street, and a woman flagged us down to ask if we had a lighter and she was holding it crack pipe

in her other hand. I was like, well, I know what you're going to use the letter for. So no, I do not.

You can see people shooting up quite publicly, people stumbling around and drug dealing is also quite

prevalent. One of the things that you notice is that these are still sort of commercial areas.

There's a lot of like auto body shops, people

selling carpets, but so much of the area is just dominated by flagrant drug use that it crowds

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