Public Nuisance Research Articles

Public Nuisance and the Meaning of a ‘Section of the Public’

Public Nuisance and the Meaning of a ‘Section of the Public’

Park smart or face the music: Understanding users’ orderly parking behavior of dockless shared bikes from the perspective of deterrence theory

The rapid growth of dockless bike-sharing has revolutionized urban transportation. However, the disorderly parking of dockless shared bikes has emerged as a critical challenge, significantly hindering the benefits of this system by causing obstructions, safety hazards, and public nuisance. This study aims to investigate users’ orderly parking behavior of dockless shared bikes through the lens of deterrence theory. Our findings reveal that punishment severity, punishment certainty, personal norm, and descriptive norm have significant positive effects on users’ attitudes towards orderly parking, which in turn positively influences their orderly parking behavior. This study contributes to the literature by extending the application of deterrence theory to the context of dockless bike-sharing and providing empirical evidence on the role of deterrence factors in shaping users’ orderly parking behavior. Our findings offer valuable insights for bike-sharing operators and policymakers to develop effective strategies.

A review of the impacts of Business Improvement Districts on crime and disorder

Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) are an initiative adopted by some local governments, businesses, and residents to address concerns around crime and disorder in commercial areas, especially open street town centres. BIDs have become popular in the USA since the 1970s; however, no comprehensive review of evaluations has occurred to date. This paper systematically reviewed the academic literature to find 13 BID evaluations. These studies were examined in terms of their impacts on crime and disorder, displacement, and cost-effectiveness. Of the nine studies that quantitatively examined BID impacts on crime rates, eight (88%) found a reduction in one or more crime types. Six studies explored BID impacts on property crime, with all finding BIDs had a significant negative association with at least one type of property crime, with BIDs particularly effective at targeting vehicle-related offences. BIDs were also found to have a positive impact on reducing disorder and public nuisance type offences, however, had mixed evidence on violent crime, with three out of seven studies on violent crime finding BIDs can help to prevent robbery. Displacement of crime to surrounding areas was found to be rare, and the three studies that examined costs of operating BIDs all concluded they are cost-effective. The challenges of implementing BIDs are discussed, along with the implications for ongoing policy and practice development in the reduction of crime and disorder in commercial areas.

Participatory Political Violence: The Sensorial Toll of the Truckers’ Convoy

In February 2022, people local to downtown Ottawa were caught in the grip of a three-week alt-right occupation that called for the end of public health measures—at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic—and the overthrow of parliament—in a government town. As hundreds of protestors in heavy-duty transportation trucks rolled into Ottawa, blockaded the streets, and with the help of a well-funded, off-site logistical network, settled in with food and fuel, their demands literally idled in the impassable streets. Their populist message of “freedom” was supported by a predominantly white male-dominated group of protestors. Idling their diesel engines and blaring air horns day and night outside the House of Commons, and nearby Centretown neighbourhood, the self-described “Freedom Convoy,” repurposed public nuisances into tactics of the alt-right. This article examines how the Convoy used such tactics to stage a sensorium of participatory political violence in the nation’s capital. It telescopes on Centretown residents, Zexi Li and Victoria De La Ronde, who testified as part of the Public Order Emergencies Commission about the harassment they endured during the occupation. Their testimony reveals how decibel-breaking noise, and noxious diesel fumes, not only overtook the streets but also entered their dwellings, filling their homes with commotion and sulfur, making it impossible to seek respite from the convoy. The airing of populist grievances through coordinated acts of honking and idling speaks to an ontological shift in political violence in Canada toward participatory performances of insolence that ultimately mask broader extremist agendas.

Indian Constitutional Perspective of Environmental Justice: an Analytical Study with Reference to PIL and Precedents

The problem of environmental pollution has assumed massive and grave proportions over the decades. It has been left to the courts in India to go behind the letter of the law into the spirit of the law to find out the plausible solutions for the problem though evolution of the law of public nuisance into environmental law. Though the implementation of statutory provisions, as also by embracing various international doctrines, the Supreme Court of India as well as various High Courts have tried time and again to develop environment-friendly justice in India through the recognition of the principle of Sustainable Development. However, the actions of the judiciary had been under attacks from other organs of the State alleging that the judiciary is transgressing its boundaries and stepping into the realms of the executive and the legislature. This paper is an effort to trace the environmental justice in India and to find out whether judicial activism can actually lead to sustainable development.

Young People’s Perspectives on Safety and Safety Promotion in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

Safety is an essential public good, more so in urban locales, and it has become imperative to understand safety in the city from the perspectives of diverse city dwellers. This paper explores young people’s perspectives on safety and its promotion in the city, using a group of young people in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador (NL). The study answers the question, what are young people’s perspectives on safety and safety promotion in the city? A conceptual framework on safety promotion and discourse analysis methodology informed the design and conduct of the study. Following purposive sampling, 23 young people aged 15 to 24 years participated in face-to-face interviews and data were analyzed deductively and inductively to identify themes. Three themes emerged which constitute participants’ safety discourse as follows: 1. Safety as essential for health and wellness—portraying safety as mental, physical, and social health; 2. Safety as threatened by behavioral and environmental factors; and 3. Safety promotion as personal and public responsibility—where individuals must act responsibly and leaders must invest in public safety measures. Consistent with the character of discourse, participants constructed safety as fundamental to human health, frowned upon behaviors and practices that threaten safety, and allocated responsibility for safety promotion. Male and female participants alike shared the view that safety is essential for health and wellbeing, and that promoting safety should be the collective responsibility of individuals and public leaders. On threats to safety, although female and male voices were represented, male participants were predominant in identifying factors related to traffic violations, criminal activity, and other forms of public nuisance. Findings of this study have implications for the empirical literature and for practice. The findings indicate that young people have a nuanced understanding of safety and are able to provide relevant suggestions on how to promote safety in the city. Their safety discourse identifies important threats to safety which, if addressed, will promote individual and collective feelings of safety. Consistent with what is known of discourses, the safety discourse aims to sanitize the community environment, to monitor and discipline individual behavior, and to shape institutional policies and practices.

Mosquitocidal efficacy of niloticin, isolated from Limonia acidissima L. (Rutaceae) against filarial vector Culex quinquefasciatus Say. (Diptera: Culicidae)

Common household mosquitoes are a major public nuisance, and mosquito-borne diseases are the greatest threat to public health. In the current situation, it would be ideal to control mosquito populations without harming the environment. The present study aims to evaluate the mosquitocidal efficacy of fractions and the active principle niloticin isolated from the leaves of Limonia acidissima Linn. against the life stages of Culex quinquefasciatus Say mosquitoes. The concentrations used to screen the fractions were 10.0, 7.5, 5.0, and 2.5 ppm and the active compound niloticin was tested at concentrations of 2.0, 1.5, 1.0, and 0.5 ppm on the larval (L3) and pupal stages of Cx. quinquefasciatus. The results showed that fraction-8 recorded the highest mosquitocidal activity, and the lethality results (LC50) after 24 hours were 3.44 ppm for larvae and 5.14 ppm for pupae of Cx. quinquefasciatus, respectively. Similarly, LC50 of niloticin at 24 hours were 0.42 ppm for larvae and 0.51 ppm for pupae of Cx. quinquefasciatus, respectively. In addition, at a concentration of 2.0 ppm, niloticin showed an ovicidal activity of 94.4% and a deterrent effect on oviposition of 100% and exhibited considerable growth disruption. In conclusion, the results indicate that niloticin can be used for vector mosquito control.

Minnesota city used anti‐crime laws against people with MI

Last year, a federal investigation found that Anoka, a suburb of Minneapolis, illegally discriminated against residents with mental health disabilities by giving landlords weekly reports, over five years, revealing personal medical information of renters who received multiple emergency calls to their homes, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Feb. 4. In at least 780 cases, the city also shared details about mental health crises and even how people had tried to kill themselves, all under the guise of enforcing an ordinance designed to deter crime and eliminate public nuisances, the U.S. Department of Justice said. City laws like those used in Anoka — among hundreds of ordinances enacted across the U.S. since the 1990s — have long drawn criticism for unfairly targeting poorer neighborhoods and communities of color, the AP reported. Now they are under scrutiny as sources of mental health discrimination. “It's horrific,” said Elizabeth Sauer, an attorney for Central Minnesota Legal Services, which serves low‐income people. “Can you imagine having the most intimate details of your life just broadcast to every landlord in the city you live in?” Anoka's “crime‐free” ordinance was enacted in 2016 and at the time, city council members said they were fighting crime and making neighborhoods safer. Reported crimes in Anoka dropped by 57% from 2016 through 2022, according to FBI statistics, though crime rates were falling before then. Last year, Maryland prohibited landlords from evicting tenants over the number of emergency calls to their addresses and prohibited cities and counties from penalizing landlords for emergency calls. A California law that took effect on Jan. 1 greatly limits cities' use of such ordinances and advocates expect a push for similar legislation in Illinois and Minnesota. While proponents of such ordinances have argued that they protect people who live in fear, critics have said that rethinking them is necessary to stem cycles of homelessness that many with mental illness face. Housing advocates point to tenant unions and tenant‐run housing cooperatives as ways to mitigate the issues that nuisance laws are intended to target.

DO MUNICIPALITIES HAVE THE POWER TO REGULATE THE KEEPING OF “DANGEROUS” DOGS?

Dog attacks and resultant deaths are frequent occurrences in South Africa. Pit bulls are responsible in many of these cases and there are calls for them to be banned. Dogs, however, are the property of their owners, and forcing people to give them up will amount to a deprivation of property and an infringement of a dog owner’s right to property, which is protected by section 25 of the Constitution. Dogfighting is rife in South Africa and the conduct of dog owners contributes to dogs being aggressive and leads to dog attacks. In terms of the Constitution, animal control is a functional area of concurrent national and provincial legislative competence; on a strict interpretation, this means that municipalities do not have the power to legislate on the function. However, everyone is guaranteed the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes the right to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources. As such, the municipality (as part of the State) must respect, protect, promote and fulfil the right. Municipalities also have a duty to promote a safe and healthy environment, and the power to make by-laws on matters they may administer. They may also exercise powers that are reasonable and incidental to the effective performance of municipal functions, which is supported by the principle of subsidiarity, the fulfilment of the duties arising from section 12 of the Constitution, and the objective to promote a safe and healthy environment. A municipality that has the necessary resources can legislate and enforce by-laws on matters listed in Schedule 4A and 5A of the Constitution, provided that such action seeks to further the objectives of Chapter 2 of the Constitution and is not in conflict with measures adopted by the national and provincial spheres. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) is responsible for animal welfare, but the responsibilities of animal welfare organisations are becoming greater as urbanisation in South Africa accelerates and animals in many disadvantaged communities are in dire need of basic animal care. The suite of local government law is geared towards the social and economic upliftment of communities, and there is legislative justification for interventions by municipalities to address matters such as the control of public nuisances, dog licensing, the operation of pounds, and the conduct of community members that can alleviate the pressure on those organisations tasked with animal care. There are a number of legislative instruments that apply to animals. A consolidation of the provisions of the various pieces of legislation into a single by-law aimed at regulating the keeping and treatment of dogs, may result in increased law enforcement and (it is hoped) increased sentences as a result of amplified enforcement, as well as improved deterrence.

Complete mitochondrial genome of Plecialongiforceps Duda, 1933 (Diptera, Bibionidae) and its implications for a phylogeny of the family Bibionidae.

Over the past decade, the prevalence of mass outbreaks involving non-native insects has sparked concerns about their potential negative impact on human inhabited areas and local environments. Plecialongiforceps Duda, 1933 (Diptera, Bibionidae) was recently recognized as an invasive pest in South Korea, causing public nuisance through mass outbreaks in the Seoul Metropolitan Area during early summer. In this study, we present the first complete mitochondrial genome of Plecialongiforceps, generated from the PacBio HiFi long-read sequencing data. Notably, the length of the circular genome is found to be larger than any annotated reference sequences of mitochondrial genomes for the infraorder Bibionomorpha, which is attributable to an unusually long A+T rich control region. We conducted a phylogenetic analysis of Bibionomorpha, focusing specifically on the family Bibionidae, using nearly all available mitochondrial genome data to elucidate relationships among genera within Bibionidae. Our phylogeny of Bibionomorpha recovered a strong monophyly of the family Bibionidae and its three subfamilies: Bibioninae (Bibio + Dilophus), Hesperininae (Hesperinus + Penthetria), and Pleciinae (Plecia), corroborating the recently proposed taxonomic classification system of Bibionidae. Furthermore, we discuss evolutionary trends within Bibionidae based on our well-supported higher relationships of the superfamily Bibionoidea.

Controversy Associated with Red-Light Traffic Cameras: Road Public Safety or Nuisance

Controversy Associated with Red-Light Traffic Cameras: Road Public Safety or Nuisance

Application Effect of Comprehensive Noise Reduction Technology in Outpatients with Vitiligo: A Retrospective Study.

Noise is a kind of perceived public nuisance that is closely related to people's subjective feelings and lives. This study explores the clinical application effect of comprehensive noise reduction technology in outpatients with vitiligo. A total of 76 patients with vitiligo were selected in the Department of Dermatology at Baoding No. 2 Central Hospital from January 2020 to January 2021, as the control group (CG), receiving 5S management mode, and 80 patients with vitiligo from February 2021 to October 2022 were selected as the study group (SG), receiving comprehensive noise reduction technology combined with the 5S management mode for this retrospective study. The effects of different management modes on these patients were observed. SG had higher nursing quality scores in service attitude, service initiative, communication skills, environmental management and item management and overtly a lower noise level than CG (all P < 0.001). The Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA) scores of the two groups at the end of treatment were significantly lower than those on admission (P < 0.05), with SG showing a lower score than CG (P < 0.001). Correlation analysis showed that noise levels and HAMA scores had a positive correlation (r = 0.423, P < 0.001). Patients with negative feelings about medical treatment caused by various noise sources in SG were obviously less than those in CG (P < 0.05). Both the groups had a statistical difference in overall satisfaction (P < 0.05). The investigation and data analysis demonstrated that comprehensive noise reduction in outpatients with vitiligo had a considerable effect. This technology can standardise the behaviour of medical staff, enhance nursing quality, reduce noise levels and alleviate patients' anxiety and improve their satisfaction. It has great benefits for the outpatient environment and patients.

An analysis of gis and gps-enabled traffic violation management in bengaluru city traffic police, karnataka, india.

The twenty-first century has also been dubbed the "technological era" because everything is powered by technology and even humans live with it. Geographical Information Systems (GIS)[1] and Global Positioning Systems (GPS)1, which we use in our daily lives, plays a crucial role in the maintained order in the society, so making this the Police Department is the primary institution for maintaining order in society. And the police department has two major actions includes pre-action and post-action in the response to any violations, issues, public nuisance, anti-social behavior, and crime, among others. So with this in mind traffic management is also one of the phenomena under social order; a lack of attention to traffic management may lead to road accidents and other issues. Management of traffic violations is a tough task for the police officials to tackle and trace out manually, but at present the Karnataka State Police Department is fully fledged with technology, as a result of which the department now has E-Policing under the Karnataka Police-IT, with this discipline of geography as a professional discipline, by using GIS and GPS applications in traffic policing to prevent potential traffic violations and to tackle and trace out these issues.

Overdose Prevention Centers, Crime, and Disorder in New York City

The first government-sanctioned overdose prevention centers (OPCs) in the US opened in New York City (NYC) in November 2021 amid concerns that they may increase crime and disorder, representing a significant political challenge to OPCs. To identify whether opening the first 2 government-sanctioned OPCs in the US was associated with changes in crime and disorder. In this cohort study, difference-in-differences Poisson regression models were used to compare crime, residents' requests for assistance for emergencies and nuisance complaints, and police enforcement in the vicinity of NYC's 2 OPCs with those around 17 other syringe service programs that did not offer overdose prevention services from January 1, 2019, through December 31, 2022. Changes in the volume of crimes reported by the public or observed by police; arrests for drug possession and weapons; 911 calls and 311 calls regarding crime, public nuisances, and medical events; and summonses issued by police for criminal infractions in both the immediate vicinity of the sites (ie, a hexagonal area spanning about 6 city blocks) and their wider neighborhoods (ie, a tesselated 3-hexagon array spanning about 18 city blocks). No significant changes were detected in violent crimes or property crimes recorded by police, 911 calls for crime or medical incidents, or 311 calls regarding drug use or unsanitary conditions observed in the vicinity of the OPCs. There was a significant decline in low-level drug enforcement, as reflected by a reduction in arrests for drug possession near the OPCs of 82.7% (95% CI, -89.9% to -70.4%) and a reduction in their broader neighborhoods of 74.5% (95% CI, -87.0% to -50.0%). Significant declines in criminal court summonses issued in the immediate vicinity by 87.9% (95% CI, -91.9% to -81.9%) and in the neighborhoods around the OPCs by 59.7% (95% CI, -73.8% to -38.0%) were observed. Reductions in enforcement were consistent with the city government's support for the 2 OPCs, which may have resulted in a desire not to deter clients from using the sites by fear of arrest for drug possession. In this difference-in-differences cohort study, the first 2 government-sanctioned OPCs in the US were not associated with significant changes in measures of crime or disorder. These observations suggest the expansion of OPCs can be managed without negative crime or disorder outcomes.

Characterizing environmental pollution with civil complaints and social media data: A case of the Greater Taipei Area

Environmental pollution is a major cause of nuisance and ill health among urban residents. Complaints are traditionally self-reported through phone-based systems. Social media provide novel channels to detect pollution-related incidents; however, their reliability has not been sufficiently evaluated. This study aimed to compare pollution incidents expressed on Twitter with those extracted from phone-based systems and to identify the built environment and socioeconomic attributes that can predict the likelihood of pollution incidents. A total of 639,746 tweets were retrieved from the Greater Taipei Area in 2017 and 110,716 self-reported pollution incidents were extracted from the Public Nuisance Petition system during the same period. The results suggest that complaints collected from phone-based systems and Twitter were found to have correlated with each other spatially, albeit they differ in temporal profiles and by the proportion of pollution categories. Catering businesses and the entertainment activities they attract appear to be the main sources of pollution complaints and can be precisely captured by geotagged tweets. This can serve as a strong predictor for pollution incidents, more than traditional indicators such as population density or industrial activities, as suggested by earlier studies. Social media analytics, with their ability to monitor and analyze online discussions in a timely manner, can be a valuable supplement to existing phone-based pollution monitoring procedures. The methodologies developed in this study have the potential to support the proactive management of urban environmental pollution, in which resources can be prioritized in key areas to further enhance the quality of urban services.

A SURVEY ON MOSQUITO CONTROL KNOWLEDGE AND INSECTICIDE USE IN NEW ORLEANS, LA, 2020-2021.

Mosquitoes are a known public nuisance and can vector various diseases. Historically, New Orleans, LA, has long been acquainted with the burden of mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria and yellow fever in the 20th century and West Nile virus in the 21st century. Government mosquito control awareness campaigns have been around for decades as has the use of organophosphate and pyrethroid insecticides by mosquito abatement districts. However, few data are available on public perception of mosquito control and public usage of insecticides to kill mosquitoes in New Orleans. We conducted a survey from August 2020 to July 2021 to evaluate New Orleans residents' 1) general knowledge regarding mosquito control and 2) what measures and products they use to control mosquitoes. The aim of this survey was to determine how residents contribute to backyard mosquito control by do-it-yourself or professional applications of insecticides. The survey was disseminated both online and via mail. Of the 396 survey participants, nearly all (99.48%) agreed that mosquito control is important in New Orleans because it prevents mosquito bites (30.85%), prevents mosquito borne-diseases (38.51%), and prevents nuisance mosquitoes (29.17%). More than one-third (35%) of survey participants indicated that they empty containers to reduce adult mosquitoes on their own property. More than two-thirds of the participants (69.95%) would not hire a pest management professional to spray their yard for adult mosquitoes, and only 20% of survey participants do apply a pesticide to kill adult mosquitoes on their own property. None of our findings were associated with the level of education, gender, or age of participants. This study suggests that the City of New Orleans Mosquito, Termite and Rodent Control Board educational and outreach campaigns may be an effective tool in spreading mosquito control awareness and contribute to residents' knowledge of mosquito control. The data we collected indicate that residents understand what mosquito control is and why it is important in New Orleans.

MH advocates ask for legislative policy that treats unhoused Kansans with respect

Mental health advocates are once again brainstorming ways to approach the Kansas state legislature about the state's growing homeless problem, the nonprofit news organization, Kansas Reflector, reported on Sept. 26. Although urban areas have higher unhoused populations — about 1,798 people are homeless on any given night in Kansas City, according to a Kansas City advocacy group — more rural areas have seen rising numbers of homeless people over the past three years or so due to the COVID‐19 pandemic and rising inflation, among other conditions that have forced more residents into the streets. During a meeting last week, Amy Campbell, lobbyist and coordinator for the Kansas Mental Health Coalition, said city officials in smaller areas were looking for ways to appropriately handle the situation. “The fact is that even small towns are now starting to encounter the public nuisance issues associated with having people camp in their parks, or along the highways or roads, or in certain areas of their communities,” Campbell said. Coalition members want to prevent policy like last year's House Bill 2430 from coming up again. In the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers suggested the measure, which would make it illegal to use state or local government property for unauthorized sleeping, camping or long‐term shelters. After widespread backlash from Kansans who had dealt with homelessness and other concerned citizens, the bill was tabled. However, Campbell said she expects some form of legislation to be raised again in the upcoming session. “There is no doubt that the pressure will continue for these issues to be addressed,” Campbell said.

Public nuisance for private persons

The public nuisance tort is now in a critical stage of development, mostly in the United States but also in other jurisdictions, including civil law systems. It is becoming ever more consequential in practice and, at the same time, widely misunderstood by courts and scholars. Our ambition is to defend a private law theory of public nuisance. Contrary to the view that the underlying rights protected by this tort contrast with private rights (say, to bodily integrity), we argue that these public rights are private rights like any other right in the law of torts since they protect private persons taken severally. And, yet, these private rights are also distinctively public in the sense that they protect the interests of private persons to use and enjoy the public sphere. In that, public nuisance imposes not merely ex post liability for undermining these interests but also, first and foremost, constructs a liberal public sphere. Our case for public nuisance shows that private law extends beyond the private sphere to capture entitlements and responsibilities that do not arise from, or attach to, ownership of land; it also resists the reduction of private law to rights of action and ex post determination of liabilities. More concretely, our reconstruction of public nuisance solves two key doctrinal challenges that the tort struggles with – concerning the standing to sue in public nuisance and the economic loss rule – and it also refines the potentially significant role of this tort in addressing the urgent threat posed by climate change.

Lefebvrian analysis of livestock keeping in Fingo Village, Makhanda (Grahamstown), South Africa

Public nuisance caused by livestock has resulted in many local governments having a designated area to keep them, called commonages. In Makhanda, livestock owners often do not effectively utilize commonages; they let animals wander in the streets and keep them in the backyards, which is against municipal regulations. This study uses Lefebvre's production of the space-spatial triad, which provides a holistic understanding of why bylaws are circumvented in Fingo Village. The focus is on the dialectic process in the spatial triad between representational space and representations of space to understand spatial patterns. Purposive sampling methods were used to select ten household plots in Fingo Village. Primary data was collected using semi-structured interviews. The study's findings reveal that bylaws are circumvented because there are spatial contradictions between the conceived land use designations of the Makana Municipality and the lived experiences of the users/inhabitants. Three issues were noted: conceived ideas were not inline with cultural beliefs about livestock keeping in backyard kraal; commonage geographic location was not ideal as it's not visible to residential areas so users can see them while grazing, which increased chances of livestock theft; and Makana Municipality not effectively enforcing regulations and administering commonages.

Public-Private Drift and the Shattering Polity

Abstract This paper approaches the public-private law problem by describing what it calls “drift.” Drift is the tendency of what is thought traditionally to be private law to become public (public drift), and the tendency of what is thought traditionally to be public law to become private (private drift). Though it is possible to distinguish public and private drift conceptually, drift is in practice a unified phenomenon: public and private drift go together. Drift is manifested not only in formal, legal developments, but also in the informal processes by which public law frameworks now influence private ordering, private rulemaking, and private relationships, as well as the way private authorities have been entrusted with the responsibility to implement those public law frameworks. The paper describes various contemporary examples of drift, explains drift’s comparative ascendancy today, and speculates about possible future developments for drift. Drift in public and private law may not be driven primarily by anything innate or conceptually necessary in the disciplines believed to constitute private or public law. Drift is instead a political byproduct, the issue of social and cultural anxieties concerning the absence of anything like a common political project, anxieties that drive powerful actors toward manufacturing imaginary commonalities that they press with confounding certitude. The powerful exploit and manipulate areas of law that properly pertain to the public and private domains, repurposing them for new uses, because their regular use is ineffective in achieving their political objectives. The paper deliberately selects examples of drift that exhibit what would be conventionally described as conservative and progressive valences (in the meteoric rise of public nuisance, in the strategy of statutes like Texas’ S.B. 8, in the mixed public-private response to COVID-19, in the controversies about social media speech control, and others) to illustrate the universality of the phenomenon. Drift is a response to a perceived political void or emptiness in which public-private partnerships of powerful actors emerge to fill the void, capture the institutions of power, and coerce people’s behavior into certain ideological grooves.