A new metric is in town - The Serene City Index

Central Park in Manhattan in the heart of New York City - quiet, green, and tranquil

by Mateja Mihinjac 

Since I got a new puppy a few months ago I have been more attuned to the quality of the surroundings in my living area, especially the noise and cleanliness. Anyone with a puppy knows they get distracted by every unusual sound or scent. This experience has offered a new look at my neighbourhood and made me appreciate serene neighbourhood pockets even more. Serene means a place that is tranquil, calm, and free from disturbance - an important quality in city life. 

We have previously written about the Livability Index. The Happy City Index, and the Sustainable Cities Index are two other popular ratings of selected measurements that rank worldwide cities.

Now a new metric has emerged - the Serene City Index.

Waterway in Ljubljana, Slovenia - water features can slow the pace of life
and provide natural serenity

SERENE CITY INDEX

According to the author of Serene City Index, MoneySuperMarket, this rating was developed to help travellers determine the most and least relaxing destinations to visit. Ratings are based on assembling information from existing databases for 75 cities around the world based on the following criteria: 

• average air quality, 
• artificial light pollution levels, 
• noise pollution, 
• traffic congestion, 
• sunshine hours, 
• overall tidiness, 
• country happiness, 
• green space, and
• the friendliness of locals.

These indicators are not only relevant to visitors but also (and probably more importantly) to residents of a city who live with excess noise, pollution, or limited access to green spaces. 

The scale, speed, and intensity of modern roadways make serenity difficult
- photo courtesy of Pixabay in Pixels

THE SCALE 

One concern with measuring and ranking based on any indices is the scale at which they are collected. In SafeGrowth, we focus on the neighbourhood as the core unit of people’s everyday experience. Ideally, that is where they spend most of their time and, if they perceive their neighbourhood as liveable, they will form attachments and connections to that place and the people within it. This is the very essence of the concept of territoriality in 1st Generation CPTED and social cohesion, in 2nd Generation CPTED.

Thus, as with crime concentrations and liveability levels, serenity may also differ significantly between neighbourhoods within the same city. That could make generalisations to the whole city somewhat misleading. This is an important limitation to keep in mind with the serenity index. 

 

Serenity through easy access to relaxing and clean park amenities

THIRD GENERATION CPTED CONNECTION

In her blog on noise pollution, Tarah already wrote about liveability being more than the absence of fear and crime, which we postulate in our Third Generation CPTED writings.

Noise, like other aspects of our immediate living environment, impacts physical and mental health outcomes. It should not be disregarded. The research we document in Third Generation CPTED suggests they can ultimately also lead to crime issues. 

The Serene City Index incorporates elements within the immediate living environment that may lead to frustration, irritability, anger, or depression. These are the very kinds of psychological factors that demand special consideration in future CPTED research and practice. 

Researchers and practitioners seldom include these factoring into their plans and research. It may be time to reconsider that habit. Further, it is also time to reconsider the scale at which we practice crime prevention and planning when it comes to community building. This is a lesson we learned long ago in SafeGrowth - when it comes to creating safer and more livable environments, it is the neighbourhood scale that matters most. 

Vancouver's Strathcona neighbourhood launches SafeGrowth

Night walking tour on one of Strathcona's residential streets

by Anna Brassard

Anna Brassard is a Canadian urban planner, CPTED specialist, and a member of the SafeGrowth Network. She was one of the co-authors of the first SafeGrowth book. In this blog, Anna joins our blogging team as she describes her recent experience as co-instructor of Vancouver's first SafeGrowth training. 

Our cities are in crisis. Increasing perceptions of fear, lack of sense of safety, and isolation are messages we are hearing repeatedly in our SafeGrowth workshops. Vancouver BC is developing its own responses to those challenges, among them, becoming the first city in Canada to commit to, and fund, what they are calling a Restorative City.   

Amid all these new responses, Vancouver's Strathcona neighbourhood chose to sponsor their first SafeGrowth training. Although British Columbia has a long history of 1st Generation CPTED training, going back to the 1980s, this is the first community-based SafeGrowth training in that city and the first-ever training in 2nd Generation CPTED in British Columbia.

Organized and sponsored by Strathcona Community Policing Centre – a police-sponsored organization and tremendous asset in the community -  we began the SafeGrowth journey in April at the Vancouver Japanese Language School, a national historic building, (and another amazing community asset) in Vancouver’s infamous Downtown Eastside.

The Strathcona Community Policing Centre sponsored the SafeGrowth training

The Strathcona class included members of the Strathcona Community Policing Centre, members from other community policing centres, Strathcona residents, local organizations, businesses, and a member from the Vancouver Police. They organized themselves into three teams, each completing a project within the neighbourhood using the SafeGrowth model.  They chose fairly complex issues and selected projects within or near public spaces and parks in the neighbourhood. 

 

THE PROJECTS

HAWKS AND HASTINGS 

Team 1 focused on a sidewalk seating area next to a community garden

Team #1 selected an area adjacent to a community garden. To displace drinking at a bus stop, picnic tables were placed on the sidewalk around the corner from the bus stop.  The city had even tried to respond to street disorder issues by designating the area as a legal place to consume alcohol in a partial effort to control problems on the street.  

Described as a “hot topic for years in the community” the team explored new ways to improve the area to bring more residents and other users into the area, control the disorderly behaviour, and improve retail and commercial activities nearby. They discovered the reality of what 2nd Generation CPTED calls Neighbourhood Connectivity, in this case, it is the complexity of trying to work with the many stakeholders and partners around, and in adjacent, neighbourhoods. 

One example they uncovered was working with the local businesses on Hastings Street along with the group that runs the community garden.  It brought home the central message of 2nd Gen CPTED – the importance of building relationships inside and outside the neighborhood to create a stronger sense of ownership (what architect Oscar Newman once called Defensible Space). 

OPPENHEIMER PARK

Strathcona's Oppenheimer Park was the site for Team 2

Team #2 selected a large park in the heart of the Vancouver neighbourhood called Japantown. The park is frequented by individuals experiencing homelessness and substance abuse, and it has been this way for a long time. It has also developed a reputation for being unsafe. Although it is not uncommon to walk through the park safely and have friendly conversations with people (members of the team did this), Oppenheimer Park has also frequently been in the news and social media highlighting its problems with encampments and conflicts. 

The team explored how to actualize what they, and others, see as the true potential for the park - a welcoming place that mitigates alienation, is inclusive of all people, and a point of pride for those who live and work in the area. While they were aware of other programs at Oppenheimer, they conducted a full assessment and spent time analyzing the crime, conducting safety audits, interviewing people camped in the park, and completing site visits and CPTED reviews. This led to some comprehensive short-term strategies such as lighting, landscaping and beautification, and some longer-term strategies such as different kinds of additional programming. 

Their next step is to include various stakeholders and residents directly at, and around, Oppenheimer Park to put their vision into action – an inclusive and safe gathering space for everyone. 

MACLEAN PARK PLAZA

MacLean Park Plaza was the focus on Team 3

Team #3 also selected a park that was designed as a neighbourhood hub but had been largely abandoned due to disruptive behaviour. The team analyzed why the park declined and they explored the potential to reclaim and reactivate it. 

During their initial research, they looked back at the park's history and became curious about a circle of benches that once existed. Over time the benches were removed and so the team dug deeper into resident experiences in the park. They initially wanted to restore the benches, but through their data collection and interviews with adjacent residents, they learned that, while there was a desire to reactivate the space, residents did not want to reinstall the benches. 

The team began with strategies to improve lighting and other physical landscaping features, but they concluded they needed a longer process of community engagement with local residents in the planning process. That is their next step.

  

Display boards used by the Strathcona community policing centre
for the public presentations

ENGAGEMENT IS KEY 

There were similar themes in all three projects. Each group envisioned public spaces that were inclusive and vibrant, instilled pride, and helped to build community cohesion. The teams all paid careful attention to the central SafeGrowth community engagement principle called TO-FOR-WITH.

Each team experienced why the SafeGrowth model stresses problem-solving “with” the local residents since they are the true neighbourhood experts. They learned the importance of not coming in to solve resident problems by creating strategies “for” them or “to” them. 

Final presentations to the public were held on the last day of the training and people from all across the city – politicians, city planners, police, the business community, and others – came to talk to team members from each project. Ultimately, the teams were asked to bring their poster displays to members of the city council for formal presentations later in the month. This was a major accomplishment for the Strathcona participants and the Strathcona Community Policing Centre. 

Remembering what matters - neighborhoods and crime

 

Independence Day celebrations - remembering history
Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, courtesy of Flickr Commons license

by Gregory Saville

Today it is American Independence Day! Three days ago it was Canada Day (Happy birthday to my Canadian and American peeps). National birthdays are times of reflection about our past and lessons learned, which makes today’s blog about social amnesia all the more salient. 

I first used the term social amnesia in a blog where I described my C. Ray Jeffery Moments about how practitioners in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design - CPTED - and more appallingly, the instructors who teach them, fail to read the original CPTED texts or learn from the original CPTED pioneers about the vision for CPTED. 

I thought myself quite clever in coining social amnesia forgetting that historian Russell Jacoby had long ago invented the term. Talk about a perfect, and well-deserved, pie-in-my-face moment! I digress. 

I have written about social amnesia a number of times – for example, while reviewing the book Designing Out Crime by Garis and Maxim. Those authors ignored an entire golden age of CPTED in British Columbia, where they live, in describing crime prevention abroad. 

 Making Cities Work: The Dynamics of Urban Innovation
by David Morley, Stuart Proudfoot, Thomas Burns. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado (1980)

Reflecting on that, a question came to mind: What do you get when you put a political scientist, an urban planning scholar, an ethicist, and a criminologist in the same room? Sometimes, when you put brilliant minds together, you get a breakthrough in how to prevent crime, feed people, deliver health, and protect the environment. I’m referring to a chapter in an urban planning book from my past – Making Cities Work.  

The book emerged from a conference in 1977 at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Toronto and one of the organizers, and co-author, was my former graduate supervisor (one of those brilliant minds) urban geographer, and former Dean, David Morley. The innovation I’m describing is a chapter by four scholars with the seemingly innocuous title: “Institutions for Neighborhood Self-Development”.

Neighborhoods need places that are safe, seatable, and social 

READING HISTORY

All that to say, it is important to read history. It is the lifeblood of our future success – or failure. I have just seen yet another droll website on “innovations in CPTED” from a security consulting firm. It claimed the “latest in CPTED” but that turned into another gross misreading of what CPTED is all about. The author spoke of lighting and target hardening. She referenced her trainer who clearly has not read the foundational documents of CPTED. More amnesia! 

Too often people engaged in day to day projects, jobs, and research ignore (or don’t read) the history that led to where we are now. This is shameful – especially for those who should know better. That is why academics include literature reviews within their studies to ensure they acknowledge their history. 

It brought to mind the message in that chapter on urban innovation, and how it ties into all the work we do in CPTED, especially with a SafeGrowth angle. 

 

When it comes to preventing crime,
neighborhood greenery and walkability matters

NEIGHBORHOODS MATTER

The urban innovation authors wrote on the neighborhood as the center of urban life – as did the original CPTED writers. For proof, read Newman’s Communities of Interest, or Fowler’s ground-breaking evaluation of the Hartford neighborhood CPTED project. Like the CPTED pioneers, the urban innovation writers also knew that the neighborhood must be the center of service delivery for health, education, environmental concerns, and security. To them the neighborhood was where everything mattered, a theme we replicate in SafeGrowth. 

This all seems so obvious today. It is commonplace in urban studies and crime prevention research. The language of these professions references neighborhoods as the center of interest: collective efficacy to improve neighborhoods, asset-based community development, neighborhood capital, and activation and community engagement.

But 40 years ago when they wrote this chapter, neighborhoods were not seen that way. Interestingly, these four brilliant minds all became famous, thought-leading scholars. 

• Louis Mascotti, held professorships in three disciplines including economics, political science and real estate. He founded Northwestern University’s Center for Urban Affairs and the Real Estate Center. 
• John McKnight, a well-known scholar of urban affairs, created asset mapping, one of the tools we use extensively in SafeGrowth. He also co-authored the seminal book Building Communities from the Inside Out and authored The Careless Society: Community and its Counterfeits. 
• Stan Hallett, an urban planning scholar and ethicist at Northwestern University marched with Martin Luthur King, Jr in the 1960s. 
• Frederic Dubow, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Illinois, wrote that crime prevention was the community responsibility and it is the means by which citizens exercise their civil rights. He was one of the first criminologists to write prominently about citizen participation in crime prevention. 

Neighborhoods need a core landmark, or something to remember

IN THE YEARS THAT FOLLOWED

Each of these authors, in their own way, built on the premise that the neighborhood – as the primary unit of geography - is the key for preventing crime and improving livability. Notice that they did not mean community, that nebulous phrase that means everything and nothing. Rather, they meant neighborhood as a specific place with geographical boundaries, an identifiable population, and unique buildings, parks, schools, businesses, and residential areas. A place people call home!  

That was the original focus of both CPTED and urban innovation. We emphasize in our work that geography matters. Too large and programs get lost in the policy or politics of the day. Too small and you end up with target hardening to prevent drug deals in the park, but then you just move it elsewhere, fail to address fear, or leave the important questions unanswered. The key is in the middle…right-sizing. That means the neighborhood. Remember the lessons of history.

There is a whole section of the SafeGrowth website on the characteristics of some great neighborhoods we have seen over the years. Let’s not lose the important legacy of the first efforts to rebuild community life and prevent crime. 

In the meantime, Happy Birthday! 

Good Neighbour Agreements - Are you a bad neighbour without one?

Good Neighbour Agreements build bridges within and between neighbours and neighbourhood organizations - Photo: The Forth Road Bridge (Scotland),
Creative Commons License, Eugene Obrien

By Larry Leach, 

Larry is Executive Director of Calgary’s 12 Community Safety Initiative – a non-profit crime prevention collaborative. He was awarded the Queens Diamond and Platinum Jubilee medals for his contributions to community-building. He is a member of the SafeGrowth Network.  

Are you thinking of starting a Good Neighbour Agreement? Have you heard that such agreements are uncomfortable and daunting? If so, there are some important things to consider, the most important being: Who do you want deciding your neighbourhood narrative?

I have been pondering the question of Good Neighbour Agreements (GNA) for a few months after a nonprofit housing leader said they didn’t like GNAs because they assume you are a bad neighbour. After pondering that idea, I decided to dig into this topic, especially why organizations and neighbourhoods should walk into these discussions with a more open mind.

WHY BOTHER WITH GNAs?

Having been on the executive of a Community Association for 10 years, I was hyper-aware of what my colleagues were facing in their neighbourhoods. Headlines like “community fights back” were the norm when I began in the association. Often these issues became a political hot potato turning into the “NIMBY” mantra (Not In My Backyard). With this narrative, almost every question or concern, legitimate or otherwise, is shot down as NIMBY. 

GNA's take time and patience to negotiate. There are some decent templates.

While NIMBY concerns do have some merit (some residents just don’t want things in their neighbourhood), there are legitimate concerns that don’t get addressed if you continually call them NIMBY. Last week’s blog on crime displacement discussed one issue with NIMBY.

In 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, my community experienced this issue firsthand. A nonprofit organization received funding to house some vulnerable people on 4 floors of a hotel in our neighbourhood. Our community Facebook page started seeing residents posting concerns – both legitimate and otherwise. Our community association executive reached out to our municipal councilor and a provincial politician. Neither one of these officials had any idea who to contact. 

GNAs can also be fun - or can create opportunities for pro-social engagement

FALSE NARRATIVES 

Meanwhile, stories surfaced on our Facebook page such as one claim from a cop describing 200 people housed at the hotel, that the hotel allowed visitors and drug use, and that visitors left hotel amenities all over the neighbourhood. Stories on Facebook gave the impression our community was under siege.

While the community association board was empathetic and supportive, they had little accurate information to combat this misinformation. After a couple months, the association was finally able to get accurate information (some of which was private). The association learned there were only 60 residents in the property and no visitors were allowed. Unfortunately, because it took months to clarify this information, residents were left to believe false FaceBook assertions. This is the first lesson of GNAs - if you don’t communicate your narrative, others will decide what it is.

While GNAs are typically about social interactions, they can also include new ideas for neighbourhood places and activities

Why do community nonprofits not want to engage with residents? Perhaps they want to avoid NIMBY? Dealing with NIMBYers is a concern, but there are some legitimate questions that remain unaddressed when you let NIMBY keep you away from such dialogue. It is important to hear from everyone, weigh through all the concerns, and then obtain accurate information before issues can be dealt with in a calm productive manner. 

THE VALUE OF THE GNA

This is the value of a good neighbour agreement. There are a number of official templates for constructing GNAs, but here are some practical tips.

A GNA can be negotiated by one or two leaders from the community and one or two from the agency. You don’t need a large public meeting to get things rolling. Here are some key elements to a good agreement:

1. Spell out the activities of each of the groups. Describe “this is what we do”. Sometimes people assume an agency does something that they don’t do. Spell out the activities and the mission of the Community Association. Some agencies don’t always understand how they are structured. Both assumptions can lead to confusion and conflict. The GNA is a living document that adapts with the changes in scope of each participant.
2. Communication. Describe how and when are we going to communicate and to whom? Will Agency A will come to Community B’s meetings, once a month, quarterly or twice per year. How is written communication done? Via e-mail, between Executive Director and President? Is there a social media strategy as well? Perhaps a yearly Barbeque? Build the structure around the relationship.
3. Who to call? Who do residents or agency users call with concerns? Dig deeper into the types of concerns as to which people to call. If it’s an illegal activity, the Police are likely to be the call. If it’s a minor dispute or nuisance, it may involve bylaw (or ordinance) officials (unkept property or noise). Call the agency to discuss before calling bylaw officials. Being a good neighbour is a 2-way street. If the relationship strengthens, more trust can be developed.
4. Spell out what happens with an unresolved dispute? Is it mediated? How long does it take? Who does the mediation? 

 

There are many advantages to well-established GNAs - better dispute resolution, controlling your own narrative, and social harmony 

IS IT WORTH IT? 

You might still be saying that this sounds like a document for two groups that don’t trust one another? It is actually an invitation and opportunity for an agency to put forward clear information about their activities and take the power away from NIMBYers and those who will decide how you operate without looking at the facts. 

The GNA helps put the rumours aside and offers some talking points based on facts – and that can be extremely helpful to support the work of neighbourhood associations. This is the starting point for a good neighbourly relationship.

There is another advantage to a GNA – consider what happens when people change positions. Putting some terms of reference in writing for all current and future decision-makers can make for smoother transitions. It can show the willingness of different groups to engage each other in a respectful manner for many years to come. That alone is a powerful incentive for GBAs. They are the key to great relationships with those who live and work in neighbourhoods. As we assert in SafeGrowth, all residents deserve to live in a safe and vibrant place.  

Displacement and the NIMBY wars

Downtown skyline, Madison, Wisconsin - site of our latest SafeGrowth training
- photo courtesy of Wiki Creative Commons

You always seemed so sure
That one day we'd be fighting

In a suburban war

Your part of town against mine

by Gregory Saville 

The rock group Arcade Fire wrote those lyrics about the alienation and gentrification in cities in their Grammy-winning song “The Suburbs”. It's a theme that arose several times in our SafeGrowth trainings in different cities this year, particularly as it pertains to the risk of displacing the troubles, disorder, homelessness, and crime in one neighborhood to others around the city. 

Displacement has shown up in this blog over the years including how gentrification displaces the poor, or how Melbourne, Australia positively displaced graffiti into a successful industry called street art tours.

MADISON

We spent time last week teaching in the beautiful city of Madison, Wisconsin. We were delighted by the dedication of members of very engaged police and planning departments, community members, business downtown advocates, and others. They chose their sites for projects and are now digging into their work to improve livability and safety. 

As in so many other cities we’ve visited over the past year, homelessness rose to the surface. We remind our students to keep an eye out for problems with crime displacement – moving problems from one area to another. They must not trigger fights between one part of town against another.

It is the same in other cities like Vancouver, Saskatoon, and Palm Springs where SafeGrowth teams identify homelessness as a major concern. Of course, homelessness, while troubling and tragic, is not a crime. Yet displacing people on the street from one place to another happens over and over and one neighborhood ends up fighting a war against another in another part of town. These NIMBY wars – Not-In-My-Back Yard – tarnish everyone and starts needless political wars. 

Architect Oscar Newman was among the first to describe the concept of crime displacement in his 1972 book Defensible Space - photo Livingston Press

WHAT DO WE KNOW?

The research article most commonly cited to describe crime displacement originally appeared in 1976. It was written by one of the original researchers from the first-ever evaluation of CPTED – the Westinghouse Studies. CPTED of that era was based on the work of architect Oscar Newman, among others, and his book on Defensible Space. 

However, it was in Newman's book where you will find the original deep dive into crime displacement. Newman spent years studying crime and prevention in New York public housing and he claims that it was Police Captain Arnold Berkman who tracked crime around the properties, including when it displaced. 

“As a vigorous police effort is concentrated in one project, criminals respond by moving into adjacent projects. Displacement, however, is seldom a full 100 percent.” (page 205). 

It is unclear from Newman’s book exactly how he and Captain Berkman traced displacement accurately enough to conclude that 100% displacement was rare. Subsequent research does seem to confirm that this is the case. 

Or does it? 

New research uncovered a different story - some of the first empirical examples of malign, negative crime displacement.

Movement around cities happens in many ways - trains, walkways, and roads. But other things move around cities, such as crime. This is the concept of crime displacement.

We advise those in our classes and in our projects that, when it comes to displacement, take nothing for granted. To the best of your ability, plan for the worst as well as the best. As in all types of neighborhood safety planning, include everyone potentially affected by displacement.  The question of displacement remains very much open.

Newman's conclusion from 50 years ago applies as much today: 

“There are serious moral implications to the question of displacement, and they are not as easily dismissed... The full extent of the displacement problem is yet to be understood and a means for coping with it developed.” (Page 206)

Homelessness in a European city

An underpass in Ljubljana - homelessness is everywhere

by Mateja Mihinjac

We’ve reported on the issues of homelessness several times although rarely from the European perspective. While not a new phenomenon, it appears the problem of homelessness – especially the most visible part that includes what Europeans call “rough sleepers” – is becoming more prevalent in the capital city of Ljubljana. At least this is the perception of many living here in Slovenia's capital city where it is now common to see a rough sleeper on the main city streets and the underpasses.   

THE PREVALENCE OF THE PROBLEM

Statistics on homelessness in Slovenia are currently lacking. The researchers Filipovič Hrast and colleagues report that the Statistical Office of Slovenia shows an almost triple increase in individuals without a home (from 4.252 in 2011 to 11.524 in 2021). In the same period, the number of individuals registered with the Centre for Social Work doubled from 1.426 to 3.085. 

The residents of Ljubljana increasingly report feeling less safe due to the perceived increase in homelessness and they have been contacting the Mayor’s office pleading to urgently address the issue.

They’ve been calling for the city to provide affordable housing for the homeless and the city is planning to respond by building a new shelter. Is that enough? Could we do better?

POOR DATA

One of the issues in dealing with homelessness in Slovenia is a lack of systematic monitoring of homelessness patterns and a poor understanding of the many pathways that lead to individuals losing a roof over their heads.

While the public often generalises and argues that homelessness is caused by personal choice, research shows there are many underlying reasons. This includes unaffordable housing, mental illness, domestic violence, substance abuse, loss of a job, financial difficulties, and others.

There is also no national strategy on homelessness. The Resolution on the National Social Protection Programme partially addresses the issue, mainly through social assistance programs. But that lacks a holistic approach to identify workable solutions that are not so limited.  

Signs of the unhoused are everywhere

WHAT NEXT?

Homelessness is becoming a major issue across Europe, possibly triggered by immigration waves from wars in Ukraine and elsewhere. 

Slovenia is not exempt from this trajectory. It is refreshing to see that the non-governmental humanitarian organisation Kralji ulice (“Kings of the Streets”) already adopted a Housing First approach in 2008. This program has been demonstrated the  most effective in addressing homelessness. It is also recommended in a White Paper of the International CPTED Association.

Finland has extensive Housing First programs and special housing facilities, such as the Kenttätie homeless shelter and a service center in Myllytulli, Oulu - photo Creative Commons Wiki

Building yet more shelters reminds me of another limited strategy – responding to crime by building more prisons. In both cases, nothing is truly fixed. It is a band-aid approach that does not address the underlying issues. 

A better strategy is to use the method we apply in SafeGrowth - work in partnership across various sectors. It is far more effective for the government to partner with non-governmental organisations, based on a comprehensive national strategy. That is the path to a much more effective response. 

Blood Alley and SafeGrowth in San Jose

SafeGrowth San Jose 2024

by Gregory Saville 

This past winter and spring, members of the SafeGrowth network visited San Jose, California in Silicon Valley and taught residents how to apply our safety planning method to roadway safety. Why roadway safety? 

San Jose is the largest city in the San Francisco Bay area with over 900,000 residents. It is the nexus of Silicon Valley with shiny architecture and high-tech HQs. Yet San Jose has a dark veil hiding a terrible truth - a deadly plague of traffic fatalities, especially pedestrians and bicyclists struck by cars. 

In 2022, 65 people died from traffic fatalities, over half of whom were pedestrians. On one single roadway alone – a ten-mile section of Monterey Road, known by locals as “Blood Alley” – 42 people were either killed or injured in traffic crashes between 2019 to 2022. 

We were hosted by the AARP California state office (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons), with some exceptional leaders at the helm: State Director, Nancy McPherson, and Ameen Khan, Associate State Director for the San Jose AARP office.  

OUR TASK

Our task was to provide resident teams with the organizational, diagnostic, and intervention skills to identify key fatality hotspots along Monterey Road and prepare some strategy reports that offer a template for other portions of San Jose. 

Does roadway safety seem like a stretch for SafeGrowth? Not really, when you realize safety is an integral part of livability.

The San Jose SafeGrowth reports offer citizen-led suggestions for improved roadway safety. At the final course presentations, one team presented their model of what safer intersections might look like.

LIVABILITY

SafeGrowth is based on livability. As Mateja has written in this blog, livability can be tenuous if not clearly spelled out. Definitions matter! 

In SafeGrowth we include all the major factors that help everyday citizens remain safe, healthy, prosperous, and happy. Livability includes diverse, interesting, comfortable, and exciting neighborhoods for those who live there and for those who visit. In our publications on livability, we propose a neighborhood spectrum from lower/basic levels to upper/advanced levels. San Jose has excellent employment, downtown markets, a historic district, and terrific architecture including the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Center for the Performing Arts.

San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, (2023, July 27). Creative Commons license in Wikipedia

But within all those basic livability ingredients, one of the most crucial is safe walking and transportation. If people are unsafe walking and if walkability carries such risks, livability in San Jose suffers. Latter-day planning theories in North America often talk about walkability. Even in cities where cars dominate and roadways rule, we know the importance of safe roadways, sidewalks, trails, and biking pathways. Thus, walking and walkability are the very core of livability. 

SAFEGROWTH IN SAN JOSE 

The results of the San Jose SafeGrowth teams were spectacular. In the final workshop, they presented their project work to the community, police, traffic officials, and others. Since then they presented it to the Seven Trees Community Association, a neighborhood along Monterey Road. They also presented copies of their reports to the City Council District’s chief of staff and requested meetings to brief council members.

This work led to the exciting story described in the AARP newsletter article “A San Jose Community Driven Project to Improve Road Safety & Community Livability”.

Two of the SafeGrowth team project reports are available online, including the Monterey Road and Curtner Avenue report and the Monterey Road and Branham Lane report.

The City of San Jose has been awarded a $2 million federal grant to improve roadway safety along Monterey Road. This AARP initiative and the San Jose SafeGrowth team projects are excellent examples of local advocacy – a defining characteristic of SafeGrowth. The collaboration between AARP volunteers and San Jose residents also demonstrates what a livable community can do to empower people to improve the quality of their lives and, in this case, to save precious lives in the future. 

"Charm City" - SafeGrowth in Baltimore

Baltimore skyline and harbor - photo by Patrick Gillespie, own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

by Mateja Mihinjac

Only two weeks after a tragic Baltimore bridge accident, we returned to Charm City for the second part of the SafeGrowth training workshop. 

Like in most of our training workshops, students formed teams to work on problems in their own neighborhoods and this week they ended their 2-month training with some outstanding presentations to the public. The presentation day celebrated their successes, dedication, and commitment to bettering their neighbourhood. 

THE FIVE TEAMS

In this SafeGrowth training workshop, we partnered with the Greater Baybrook Alliance (GBA), a truly excellent non-profit community development corporation responsible for improving liveability in three Baltimore neighbourhoods: Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, and Brooklyn Park. 

Thirty participants were divided into five teams. They followed the 5-step SafeGrowth process where they identified and analysed their chosen problems, diagnosed harms, crimes, and the underlying causes, and then formulated solutions. 

Just like in the Charm City documentary trailer, the teams identified violence and drug-related issues that have a devastating impact. Most importantly, they understood that they, as community members, play a crucial role in tackling issues together with the police, organizations like schools and businesses, and other partners. 

One of the training venues in Baltimore county

Team 1: Hanover Street (commercial street)

This team identified overlapping issues affecting safety and the feelings of safety. Those issues in turn led to major economic impacts and traffic problems in this culturally diverse commercial street: loitering, drug selling, littering, underlit areas, and several vacant properties. The team discovered how the vacant properties and lack of ownership contributed to street problems, including crime. This was easily observed by anyone walking along that street, especially after dark. They are in the process of formulating some practical responses.

One of the classroom design exercises 

Team 2: Brooklyn Homes Basketball Court

This team referred to their project area as “the forgotten place” due to the lack of desirable activity and increased fear of the area ever since a mass shooting at this location in July 2023. In their first training workshop two months ago, the team learned about the thesis of Jane Jacobs who described the crime risks in empty and vacated areas with no “eyes on the street”. This fits the situation at the basketball court. 

The team first examined how youth congregated and what they did, and then examined problems with vehicle thefts, robberies, and aggravated assaults. This basketball court will undergo a redevelopment shortly and the team will ensure that they work closely with the partners and stakeholders in charge of the rebuild. Their goal is to ensure the basketball court becomes an activated space that fosters community engagement and social cohesion and thus regains its prominence in the neighbourhood as a positive gathering space.

Participants partnered with city and county police on problem-solving
during project work

Team 3: Team Landlord

Team Landlord choose to investigate a major problem of illegal renting and slumlord activity on neglected and vacant properties. This is a Baltimore-wide problem and it is often seen as a contributor to illicit drug activity and violence. The team confirmed this hypothesis and – because their analysis allowed them to associate problem properties directly to issues like drug use and drug dealing, prostitution, trafficking, loitering, and squatting – they were able to identify specific vacant properties as a major threat to safety and livability. 

The team was excited to confer with some local legal experts regarding legal and regulatory strategies to mitigate the problem. They now have intentions to formulate a systematic solution that can influence the slumlord issue throughout the entire city. 

The Greater Baybrook Alliance community organization was an outstanding facilitator of the SafeGrowth work in the three neighborhoods

Team 4: Riverside Road Park - Brooklyn Park Champions

The Champions chose to tackle an empty lot on the city/county line that has also been forgotten and neglected. Consequently, as discovered by Team 2 on a different project, Jane Jacob's "eyes on the street" theory was also a factor in this property - it now attracted undesirable activity. In addition to speeding and trash dumping, the team uncovered petty crime, drug-related incidents, vandalism, assaults, and thefts from autos. 

The team also pointedly recognised that all these issues visible on the surface are symptoms of underlying problems with poor social cohesion in the neighbourhood and lack of care or activation in the park. Their detailed analysis led to some initial strategies which, during their public presentations, allowed them to receive public feedback and narrow their responses even further. 

Spanish speakers tackled school-related violence with considerable
commitment to safety - they had children attending the schools

Team 5: Ben Franklin High School

This Spanish-speaking team of vibrant residents chose to address the issue of school kids’ fights spilling over from Ben Franklin High School onto an adjacent alleyway. The fighting outside the school was worrying, but they were also concerned that the fights might worsen without some coordinated intervention. A few of the team members were mothers of young children, some attending the school, and they were concerned about the well-being and the future of their children. 

The team conducted site visits to the property and received input from others in the area. Their crime analysis is still underway. This preliminary research reaffirmed their need for further study into the underlying issues for more comprehensive strategies. They have their homework to do! Foremost in their next steps was to develop partnerships with key stakeholders such as school officials and a nearby church adjacent to the alleyway. Equipped with more detailed research and data, this will be their next step. 

Presentations during the poster sessions with about 70 members of the public. The community response was excellent

GBA executive director, Meredith Chaiken, addresses the audience. GBA staff were outstanding, particularly director of public safety, Daisy Heartberg, & neighborhood safety coordinator, Yvette Bailey-Emberson

INITIAL STEPS TO MOVE FORWARD 

The teams have now made the initial steps towards solutions for their different problems through comprehensive SafeGrowth projects. But there is much yet to do. They will continue to build their projects in the coming months and then create partnerships along the way. As they finalize their partnerships and project schedule, they will then start implementing strategies. 

The Greater Baybrook Alliance is examining a more permanent problem-solving process to address neighbourhood problems with their partners, such as businesses and police, and formulate a long-term plan for safety. 

We are proud of the hard work of these teams of committed residents, business people, police, and others in the class. In a very short time, they accomplished an incredible amount of work as they applied the SafeGrowth philosophy, CPTED, planning concepts, crime analysis techniques, and project management. Their work is the mark of high-quality community leaders. The Greater Baybrook Alliance has launched an incredible community capacity-building process. This part of the “Charming City”, it seems, has a bright future! 

Liveability - the key to success in community development

Liveability is not only physical infrastructure - Photo courtesy of Denys Nevozhai - Unsplash

by Mateja Mihinjac

What is liveability? Liveability is one of those buzzwords that has been used extensively in urban development and city planning circles. Yet, it is one of those words that mean different things to different people and organisations and they rarely offer a consensus on what it means.

For example, the Online Cambridge Dictionary defines liveability as “the degree to which a place is suitable or good for living in”.

The organization, Partners for Livable Communities, takes a more specific approach: “Livability is the sum of the factors that add up to a community’s quality of life—including the built and natural environments, economic prosperity, social stability and equity, educational opportunity, and cultural, entertainment and recreation possibilities.”

Different definitions of liveability raise some important questions. Is liveability simply a binary concept? What parameters should it consider?

IS IT JUST BINARY?

Over the years, and especially since Greg Saville and I wrote our first article on Third Generation CPTED in 2019, I’ve had interesting discussions in professional circles about liveability.

At some point, liveability must mean the perspectives of people

First, I am asked about levels of liveability. In our article, Greg and I proposed neighbourhood liveability exists on a spectrum from advanced level to moderate and basic level neighbourhoods. An advanced-level neighbourhood will be highly liveable and offer opportunities for addressing the lowest and the highest level personal and social needs. Conversely, the neighbourhood at the basic level will generally have a bare minimum infrastructure and services for addressing the basic level physiological and psychological needs.

Sometimes, I am asked whether liveability exists or it doesn’t exist – a binary relationship. That would mean we should classify neighbourhoods as either liveable or non-liveable. 

In our view, liveability should be assessed on a spectrum similar to that of personal health. There are many levels of health with a multitude of contributing factors; we don’t simply say one is healthy while another is unhealthy. Similarly, as we describe in our 3rd Generation article, liveability of a neighbourhood has many facets that may contribute to higher levels of liveability in some categories and lower in others.

Existing liveability indices support our view. The continuum of liveability shows up when world cities are ranked based on their liveability scores in relation to economic, health, physical, and social factors. Organisations using these indices affirm there is a continuum of liveability. 

For example, 

• The Economist’s Intelligence Unit assigns different weighing to categories of stability, healthcare, culture & environment, education, and infrastructure to calculate the total index. 
• Mercer’s Quality of Living City Ranking uses categories of political stability, healthcare, education, infrastructure, and socio-cultural environment. 

These are just some examples of why it appears unproductive to refer to liveability as a binary concept.

Integrating green with concrete infrastructures can improve livability - Photo courtesy of Unsplash

WHOSE LIVEABILITY PARAMETERS?

Another point of contention is the categories employed when evaluating liveability. The Centre for Liveable Cities points to the tangible elements associated with physical infrastructure and availability of services like housing affordability, road access, school, and shopping access.

Undoubtedly, such services are paramount for a good quality of life. Unsurprisingly, cities like Singapore and Vienna score highly on the liveability scale largely due to these types of elements. 

But a question remains: Should we rely on those categories defined by the organisations conducting liveability surveys? Or should we delve deeper and identify what liveability means to people living in a particular neighbourhood? 

Our choice is the second option – liveability should be based on residents’ assessment of whether their needs and desires are being addressed where they live. This might make comparisons between neighborhoods difficult and it will surely annoy evaluators. However, the methodological needs of the evaluators seem secondary to the needs of the residents. It seems more realistic to ask those who actually live in a place to define their own perceptions of where they live. 

Liveable cities offer social places - Photo courtesy of Toni Ferreira, Unsplash

IT'S PEOPLE! 

One thing is certain: liveability should put people and local communities at the centre. This view is supported by many different sources. For example, consider the website of Partners for Livable Communities. They too identify people as the greatest resource for community change.

It is also identified by the senior communications adviser for the Congress of New Urbanism, Robert Steuteville, who asserts the importance of walkable and integrated living environments for building social capital and promoting a sense of belonging within a community.

Another supporter emerged in a recent interview with urbanist Richard Florida. His view was that the key element of liveability centers around community building, housing affordability, and access to health & wellness.

TO-FOR-WITH

From our perspective, liveability starts with people. The core philosophy of SafeGrowth is the TO-FOR-WITH principle – we aim to work as much “with” residents in a place rather than delivering programs “to” them or “for” them. It has historical roots in sociology and community development going back to the action research studies of the last century. It was the method employed in our successful SafeGrowth work in New Orleans.

Instead of relying on professional agencies to identify liveability categories, or discussing whether some city or neighbourhood is liveable or not, we need to start paying more attention to people. We must find out what liveability means to them and what they need to improve it.