For those of us who are invested in the redemption of New York City, it is hard to think of a more consequential figure than James Q. Wilson, and his death this week is a moment to reflect on that remarkable fact. He was, after all, neither an elected official, nor even a New Yorker, nor an appointed aide to a mayor or governor nor a police commissioner nor a financier. He was, instead, a scholar of political science, and the enormous impact he had on New York — and the rest of America — came from the act of writing. That’s all.

He was the author who, with George Kelling, wrote the article in the Atlantic that introduced what is called the broken windows theory. It was the idea that allowing buildings and streets to fall into disrepair creates a climate invites crime — and that, conversely, keeping windows and buildings in good repair was a step toward defeating crime. The political science the authors marshaled to advance this theory was deeper than we have plumbed. But the idea was one of the breakthroughs that lead to the restoration of law and order in New York City.

Mayor Giuliani will go down in history as the leader who proved that New York was governable, but James Q. Wilson was the most famous of the thinkers who illuminated how it could be governed. Others knew Wilson far better than we did and their remembrances are being read by millions this morning. But, as Ira Stoll has related at Futureofcapitalism.com, he visited the newsroom of the Sun even as it was under construction and wrote for the paper in its startup years. It says something about his spirit and generosity that he would stop by to encourage a new newspaper, and we will always be grateful for, in addition to all else, the encouragement he gave.