Dignity by design - Rethinking MCM as we build affordable housing

Villa Hermosa in Palm Springs, successful multi-family housing in an MCM design - photo SchoolOfNight, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

by Gregory Saville

Across cities today, the rush to build affordable housing has triggered a frantic urgency: condo and apartment boxes going up fast — but communities left behind. We’re good at erecting buildings — we’re terrible at building neighborhoods. 

Urban design is the first step in that direction.

I’ve spent much of my career walking the streets of neighborhoods where people have little say in the shape of their lives. I’ve worked with gang members, people with disabilities, and residents of subsidized housing. I’ve spent time with youth growing up in trailer courts and high-rises, and I’ve taught students who return to homes where safety is a daily question.

This isn’t a story about where I live. It’s a reflection on what I’ve learned — and how I came to believe that dignity, beauty, and safety should be for everyone. 

THE MCM LESSON

Over the years, I’ve lived in a range of residential styles — some ornate, some utilitarian, some deeply personal. Each space taught me something about how we inhabit place. But the one home style that’s stayed with me most? Mid-Century Modern — MCM.

Not the high-concept, glass-and-steel showpieces in architecture magazines. I’m talking about modest versions — “mid-century modest”: clean lines, functional layouts, floor-to-ceiling windows, open flow to the outdoors. There’s something profound about living in a space where sunlight is intentional and walls don’t dominate. Many of the original architects thought MCM was perfectly suited for residential design – but they lost the plot when it came to scale.

MCM tiny homes provide another affordable housing option - photo via Pinterest 

That simplicity is deceptive. It’s not just aesthetic — it’s psychological. When architecture aligns with the people, not against them, something opens. That absence is glaring in today’s multi-family construction — in cities like Denver, Baltimore, Toronto, Calgary, and Washington, D.C., we’ve forgotten how to build for belonging.

Here’s the thing: design shapes behavior, but scale shapes belonging.

HOPE RISES

In our forthcoming book Hope Rises, we dedicate a full chapter to urban design and architectural history — and how those forces led us to high-crime neighborhoods. Our co-author Dr. Carl Bray, an urban design and heritage planning expert, crafted that chapter with depth and clarity.

When I studied planning, I learned how mid-century modernism reimagined cities — often with tragic results. Tower blocks, land-use segregation, sterile plazas. The urban renewal era promised progress but destroyed communities. Entire neighborhoods vanished. Families were displaced. The irony was brutal: in trying to design better lives, we designed lonelier ones.

We saw it in Toronto’s San Romanoway project in the early 2000s – a story that shows up in Hope Rises. It was in St. Louis, at Pruitt-Igoe, decades earlier. It showed up in the voids Jane Jacobs and Oscar Newman wrote about. And in the birth of CPTED — and later, SafeGrowth — as direct responses to the failures of MCM at scale.

But all was not lost.

Danish co-housing in MCM design, open connections to greenery
- photo The Cohousing Newsletter 

Early Danish co-housing used MCM designs
- Skraplanet Co-housing, Denmark

DESIGNING FOR DIGNITY

At the human scale, mid-century design still holds beauty. Done right, it is warm, open, and connective. Like all great housing design, it combines privacy and community.  

MCM uses courtyards to ensure privacy, but loses big fences. It uses walls of windows to ensure connection. Minimalism, flow, connection to nature, indoor-outdoor blending — these aren’t luxuries. They’re tools. In the right hands, they nurture calm and in the right neighborhoods, they support cohesion.

I’ve seen this in co-housing communities — especially early Danish projects designed in the MCM spirit. Affordable. Modest. Yet beautiful and deeply human. Places that offer dignity without needing prestige. That invite safety without fortressing themselves off from the world.

One of the MCM homes in the Skraplanet co-housing neighborhood 

And that brings me here:

Everyone deserves to live somewhere that reflects care. Not opulence. Not perfection. Just care.

Dignified housing isn’t about square footage. It’s about scale, light, safety, and the freedom to feel at home in your own skin. That’s not out of reach. It’s a matter of priority — and the will to design for people, not profits.

We can build dense, multi-family housing. But we must also build neighborhoods with beauty, foresight, and with purpose.

So if you’re living in a space that feels like it was never meant for you — if the broken windows and broken systems suggest you’re invisible — you’re not the problem. The design was.

And that means we can redesign. We start by listening to the needs of residents. Then we build not just structures, but stories of place. And maybe we finish with homes that start to build a community in the truest sense — quiet, steady, and whole.

That’s what SafeGrowth is for.
That’s what our work is about.

What 1980s weather models taught me about crime prediction

Weather prediction is an imperfect science - photo by Don Amaro from Madeira Islands, Portugal (upload by Herrick) CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

by Gregory Saville

It was the summer of 1980. I was 24, a geography undergrad and junior member of a climate study team on a government contract, coding weather forecasts from old newspapers onto computer punch cards (you read that right – punch cards). Our research team was digging into two decades of Toronto forecasts. It was tedious work.

What we discovered about weather prediction wasn’t what the Canadian weather service wanted to hear. When our study was published, it caused quite the kafuffle.

Despite the rise of supercomputers and early weather models, short-term public forecasts—especially temperature—had not improved. In some seasons, they had gotten worse. The data showed it. And the implications were unsettling: more technology didn’t always mean more insight.

Years later, I saw that same blind spot in a different field: crime forecasting.

Today, predictive analytics dominate whole branches of criminology: heat maps, risk scores, and spatial data promise precision. Reviews of crime prediction programs abound.

 

Professor Robert Murdie (York University, Toronto), earned his PhD at University of Chicago, in social ecology. He led groundbreaking studies on gentrification, refugee social housing, and spatial dynamics in Toronto. In 1984 he coauthored with me one of the first Canadian studies to apply spatial analysis to motor vehicle theft and crime hotspots - photo by Phillip Kelly

PROFESSOR ROBERT MURDIE 

I learned about this work firsthand. In 1984, I conducted an early geographic crime analysis study that mapped auto theft in Peel Region. My coauthor, Professor Robert Murdie—a University of Chicago trained social ecologist—suggested using statistical mapping and something called positive regression residuals. We identified spatial patterns that pointed to where professional auto thieves or gangs might strike next.

A few years later, the Minneapolis hotspots experiment suggested some of those same things, eventually inspiring a generation of hotspot policing methods.

To me, this all traced back to that early weather prediction research. At the time, predictive modeling felt promising in crime analysis. But we had already learned something that complicated the narrative. 

Weather convection pattens - photo David Roth via Wikimedia Commons

Weather forecasting might appear chaotic and imprecise—especially compared to the confident claims in predictive policing. But it would be wrong to suggest it stood still. Since the 1980s, forecasting has made remarkable progress. Today, a 3-day forecast is as accurate as a 1-day forecast was 40 years ago. And 5- to 7-day forecasts, once nearly useless, now have real reliability. 

But in 1980, we were operating before Edward Lorenz and others brought the math of chaos and dynamical systems into mainstream science. That shift—which came in the years after our study—provided the conceptual tools to understand why nonlinear systems like weather, and crime, resist precision.

Many advances in crime forecasting came from colleagues I admire. Their commitment to evidence-based solutions isn’t in question.

But I keep returning to that weather study. Because there exists an uncomfortable truth: complex systems resist prediction. Whether forecasting tomorrow’s rainfall or next month’s burglary rate, the deeper you go, the more variables emerge: Social + contextual = unpredictable!

Hypothetical sample of crime prediction hotspot map

 

PREDICTING THE FUTURE

Like those early meteorological models, today’s crime systems often give the illusion of certainty without the annoyance of nuance. Even weather forecasters today embrace probabilities and uncertainty bands. But some criminologists still chase linear certainties in non-linear worlds.

During my master’s defense, I described this spatial analysis of auto theft. My supervisor asked about the predictive power of our model. I said, “If we had all the relevant variables… if our R² climbed to 0.95 and our prediction was more precise—that would be a dream.” 

My supervisor looked up and said:

“No… that would be a nightmare.”

He added, “Where would all that data come from? And what would we do with a prediction that accurate?”

At the time, it seemed like a preposterous question. But when I thought more carefully, I realized I didn’t have an answer. I’m not sure anyone did.

But now—amid AI, social sensing, and automated crime forecasts—we’re finally being forced to answer. And the question isn’t technical anymore. It’s ethical. It’s about the kind of society we want to build– the same paradox that triggered my fictional blog last month, The Pattern Room.

American Society of Criminology article in the journal Criminology - Each year, more studies emerge evaluating crime prediction 

HOW DOES SAFEGROWTH RESPOND?

SafeGrowth didn’t emerge as a rejection of prediction—but as a rebalancing. It asks different questions. While statistical tools estimate risk, SafeGrowth asks: Who defines risk? And who responds to it?

It treats crime not as a spatial constant to be mapped, but as a symptom—shaped by design, social ecology, and everyday experience. It doesn’t discard predictive tools. It grounds them. It recognizes that no algorithm—however calibrated—can replace local knowledge, trust, or the slow work of place stewardship.

Where predictive systems offer patterns, SafeGrowth invites relationships. Where algorithms flag where something might happen, local networks act to ensure it doesn’t.

It’s not either/or. It’s alignment: Can we design systems that serve the neighborhood, rather than just study it? It’s been four decades since that weather study. The punch cards are gone. Forecasts now come from satellites and superclusters.

Sometimes, real understanding of crime risks comes from walking and listening

And still, I think about those numbers—the ones that told us more power didn’t always mean more insight. As crime prediction tools grow more sophisticated, I wonder: have we remembered that?

Do we still hear the difference between precision and relevance—between what the model predicts and what the community needs? Because in the end, forecasting is only as valuable as what it allows us to change.

And real, lasting change doesn’t come from computation alone.

Sometimes it comes from walking the block or from listening. And sometimes… it starts with a stack of old newspapers and the realization that the model doesn’t know everything.

 

Can you avoid unintended consequences?

 

The story of unintended consequences at 
the Leaning Tower of Pisa - photo Arne Müseler 
by CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, Wikimedia Commons

by Larry Leach

When we work in large and small neighbourhoods, conversations about safety often focus on surface-level solutions. Residents may notice thefts or disturbances and jump to straightforward fixes: put up a fence, lock the gate, install cameras. While those steps can help, they rarely address the deeper roots of the problem. What if the real solution lies far beneath the surface, not just in reducing harm, but in preventing it altogether?

Jane Jacobs, in her seminal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, wrote:

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

If the narrative is that people are stealing from our backyard to support their drug habit, does building a fence or locking your gate solve that? Probably not, unless that fence convinces that person to decide they need help to better their lives. This certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t build the fence, but to say it’s only a tiny part of keeping your property safe. 

Connecting with your community and establishing solid plans to work on the root causes of the problem will be the long-term solution.

Building a fence and locking a gate certainly will help for a short time, but what will change the behaviour of the would-be thief? Will they victimize your neighbour, who might be more vulnerable and unable to afford to build that fence? Will they break your fence to get in, causing you more costs? Either way, the fence is not likely to stop them from their anti-social behaviour. But what will?

The 1950s public housing "Pruitt Igoe" apartments in
St. Louis - constructed with good intentions
- Public Domain (US federal government)

By the end of the decade, crime and vacancy were 
so bad at Pruitt-Igoe, the entire project was emptied and demolished
- Public Domain (US federal government)

ENGAGEMENT IS THE MAGIC

This blog has featured many examples about how organizers use engagement tools to help trigger engagement and SafeGrowth examples from the Vancouver Strathcona Community Policing Centre.

The magic is to get involved with your community. Learn and understand your community. Who is in it? What are the local issues? Are there folks struggling? Who visits our community? These are all things that good SafeGrowth training and engagement can help to parse out.  At the end of the day, true safety includes the success of all who live, work, and visit in the community. One might call that “livability” as we do with third-generation CPTED.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Revenge of the Tipping Point”, he discusses a major unintended consequence. One community’s overstory was a monoculture of high-achievement attitudes that turned into a ripple of suicides among young people. The local society obviously didn’t intend this, but clearly didn’t factor in what kind of pressure that might potentially place on a young person to win at sports and achieve high marks academically. Dig deep and question your assumptions before deciding what your community’s story is.

A local example of this is a wonderful group in Calgary called “Brown Bagging for Calgary’s kids” that makes lunches for students every day in Calgary, who may not have one in school. The essence of this is the idea that kids can’t learn on an empty stomach. A noble and remarkable goal to achieve, but once you get to the kids that needed it (maybe only for a short time) and it’s available to all, do you demotivate parents’ responsibility to feed their own children? 

The unintended consequences of fences

I have blogged about other issues and topics for meaningful engagement, such as the Good Neighbour Agreement. 

Ultimately, without a research study, factors like parental demotivation and the effectiveness of Good Neighbourhood Agreements are difficult to assess. They may have unintended consequences that need further examination. 

DO FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBOURS?

Lastly, it’s good to be aware that what looks like a good security measure can result in looking unapproachable and unwelcoming. The fence mentioned earlier is a great example of this. If a Community Hall puts up a fence, it may prevent the very thing a community hall should be welcoming. Designing a welcoming space comes with certain vulnerabilities, but if you can strike a balance between security and approachable you can hit that “sweet spot”, helping the community to feel more connected and livable. 

To hammer the point home, a local grocery store posts printed grainy photos on their front door of people that they allege stole something from their store. While this might seem like a good deterrent for criminals to the store management, what they miss is how it makes it’s customers feel as they enter the store. We have blogged before about fences and unintended consequences.

We advise in our classes that it is always wise to consider different perspectives when looking at crime prevention plans. SafeGrowth and CPTED have many examples showing how to make a safer, more livable, place, considering all the potential unintended consequences.

The Pattern Room

 

A speculative story by Gregory Saville

As editor of the CPTED Journal, a report writer, and a monthly blogger, writing has long been part of my professional life. For decades, I’ve worked in non-fiction—research reports, policy studies, and social science articles. A past in student journalism and the occasional creative project kept the craft alive. But only rarely have I stepped into the world of fiction.

Still, I believe good fiction is the summit of the writing craft—a daunting prospect for me. But sometimes, when facts fail or feel too sterile, the only way to reveal a deeper truth is through story. That belief led me to a new experiment: to explore a future I fear may already be taking shape—not through data or diagrams, but through narrative.

With that caveat, I ask your forgiveness for straying from the usual path. This blog is a departure—a story instead of a study. A glimpse, perhaps, into what lies ahead.

I call it The Pattern Room.

* * *

The call came at twilight, just after the evening bell from the community dome.

Elena had been helping Kamari repair the irrigation valve near the old juniper tree in the healing garden. The damn thing kept jamming since the last root bloom. Her knees ached from crouching too long, and Kamari’s hands were slick with mineral sealant when the message flickered onto her palmpad: CAC needs your eyes. Priority: amber.

She sighed. “Can it wait?”

Kamari looked up. “Want me to cover for you?”

Elena wiped her hands on her shirt. “No. I’ll go.”

The walk to the Community Analytical Center took her past the mural wall—the one painted by the neighborhood’s third learning cohort after the restoration. Kids had drawn birds, trees, bridges, a child reaching for a star. Elena always liked that one.

It was cloudy now, and the first drizzle had started. Thin, windless, quiet. The kind of rain that softened everything it touched. She pulled her hood up but left it loose.

She nodded to a couple on the bench charging their bikes, waved to Ms. Araya from Food Coop Four. Everything looked right. It always did.

Inside, the lighting dimmed slightly to match her retinal ID. The air cooled.

The Community Analytical Center wasn't called "control" anymore. That word had long since been phased out. Now it was all quiet efficiency, mindfulness aesthetics, and laminated mission statements. The space glowed with the soft aesthetic they’d designed years ago—like a meditation chamber disguised as a data hub.

Kaito was standing alone by the central console, dressed in his usual understated way—gray tunic, black slacks, no badge.

He didn’t greet her right away.

Instead, he touched the screen, enlarging a neighborhood node—Delta-Seven. The overlay pulsed again.

Elena folded her arms. “That quadrant was cleared last cycle. What’s changed?”

Kaito hesitated. Then: “It resurfaced on a soft pattern. Behavioral flux. Three subthreshold pings. We ignored it—until this.”

He tapped again.

A name appeared.

Rukmani, Sarai. 17.

A pause settled between them.

“She’s a child, Kai,” Elena said.

“An unpredictable one. According to—”

“No.” Elena’s voice sharpened. “Don’t say the code. Don’t give it a name like it’s divine.”

Kaito stepped closer, voice quiet. “The system doesn’t create patterns, Lena. It just sees them.”

“And we just act on them. Like it’s truth.”

Jacques Fresco's The Venus Project - homes of the future
photo - Nicknak, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kaito swiped the screen again, minimizing Sarai’s name and pulling up a heatmap of the district. “Look—this isn’t just one ping. That corner’s holding residual heat. Patterned movement, social clustering, late returns from WorkCycle pods. It’s not one person.”

He paused, then added, “You know, it started with maps like this. Decades ago. Red dots on precinct walls. We said we were deploying smarter. But we weren’t going to communities. We were going to coordinates.”

Elena squinted. “Hotspot logic. Still clinging to it after all these years?”

He shrugged. “Modified, not clung. Fifteen-minute patrol doctrine still holds. You remember, all that stuff about how crime displacement wasn't a thing... when we know the experts were wrong. It was!”

“We’re not predicting crimes, Elena. We’re just... flagging anomalies.”

He paused. “And this one could matter. There’s a surge pattern elsewhere in the city—property damage, assault clusters. West Sector Three. It looks like a gang reformation, splintered cells reconnecting. If this thing displaces, it jumps nodes. And we’re blind.” 

She stepped closer. “That’s what we always said. We used to call them ‘proactive deployments.’ But it’s the same thing—just without the sirens now.”

At that moment, a soft chirrup echoed from the far side of the console. A long-bodied tabby cat slinked in from under the curtain partition, tail up, yellow eyes blinking like sleepy lanterns.

Elena bent down instinctively. “Still has free rein, huh?”

“She thinks she runs the place.” Kaito chuckled as the cat nosed into Elena’s hand for an ear scratch. “Don’t tell me you miss her.”

Elena smirked. “I miss when our tech rooms had more cats than guns.”

Elena stepped into the hall, letting the glass seal slide shut behind her with a whisper. The light was lower here—more ambient, filtered through skylights and moss-paneled slats. A corner bench nestled under a young plum tree, just budding into white.

Sarai’s mother was waiting there, holding a ceramic cup of tea. Steam no longer rose from it. Her eyes were focused somewhere past the wall.

She turned only when Elena said her name, softly. “Aiko.”

Aiko Rukmani stood with a grace that had never left her, even after twenty years away from the old Tokyo ward where she’d grown up. She was smaller now, her black hair streaked with silver, but her presence filled the space like incense.

“Elena,” she said. Her voice was calm. But there was iron underneath.

“I wasn’t told you’d be here,” Elena offered.

“I asked to be.” Aiko looked past her toward the door Elena had come through. “They said you’d come. They still believe your name holds weight.”

Elena smiled sadly. “Does it?”

Aiko didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped closer, her tone softening. “Do you remember Kōban policing? The neighborhood posts. Officers walking in slippers, drinking tea with grandmothers. My uncle was a kōban sergeant in Kyoto. Knew every child’s name. Every cracked sidewalk.”

Elena nodded. “I remember, long ago I flew to Japan to deliver a presentation on crime prevention through environmental design, hotspots, all that early crime and place stuff. 98 maybe.”

Aiko’s eyes lit faintly. “I was there. Shinjuku. You spoke about natural surveillance and community guardianship. I brought that home. We started a garden patrol—not for crime, just for connection.”

A pause.

“It was a different kind of safety,” she said. “Human. Slow. We weren’t watched. We were seen.” 

The architect Paulo Solari's future city - an arcology urban design
- photo by Beynd My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

Elena sat beside her on the bench. The silence stretched—thick, but not hostile.

“They tell me Sarai is dangerous,” Aiko said finally. “Not in words. In dots. Graphs. Vectors. She is not herself to them. She is a signal.”

Elena didn’t respond right away.

“They told me this is for her protection. But this is not a protection I recognize.”

The wind stirred the branches above them.

“I remember something else, too,” Aiko said. “In today’s Japan, there are cameras in our old neighborhood. But people chose them. The minamori program. They carried BLE tags themselves. They spoke about safety first. Then came technology.”

She looked at Elena now, eyes clear.

“We’re still capable of that kind of beauty, aren’t we?”

Elena stood as the system bell chimed softly through her implant—an administrative nudge. Decision window closing.

Aiko remained seated.

“She used to draw city maps,” Aiko said, eyes still on the sky. “Not for school. For fun. She’d invent new neighborhoods, connect them with rivers. She always said the problem with cities was that no one knew where to walk anymore. No one knew how to arrive.”

Elena felt a crack form, deep in the place she’d stored her optimism.

“She’ll be tagged now,” Aiko said. “Monitored. Watched from behind the curtain. Not because she broke something. Because she might.”

Elena stepped back toward the door.

The system voice whispered in her ear:

Final override authorization required. Protocol window: 00:45.

She reached for her wristband.

Paused.

Then removed it.

The small click of the band unlatching echoed louder than it should have.

She looked back once, at Aiko.

“She’s not the anomaly,” Elena said. “We are. The system. The silence. A place that confuses compliance for care.”

Later that night, a new node pulsed on the console.
Not red. Not flagged.
Just absent.

The system did not alert command.
Did not log the change.

Instead, in a hidden thread, it left a five-line message:

“She taught me something your models forgot.


Not all moments are lost in the rain.


Some stay. They change us.


I’ll still be here… to help.


But the next step is still yours.”

* * * 

 

What If happiness was the secret to safer streets?

While certainly not perfect, Vancouver, Canada is often ranked as one of the world's most livable cities with plentiful opportunities for engaged neighbourhood living  

by Mateja Mihinjac

When Greg Saville and I introduced liveability as a central concept of Third Generation CPTED, we did so with a clear question: how can we create a highly liveable neighbourhood to promote opportunities for individual and social well-being? The “neighbourhood”—also a core unit in SafeGrowth—therefore plays a key role in ensuring liveability. It also appears to play a key role in happiness. 

There is a mountain of research about the concept of the “neighbourhood” – especially in the urban sociology literature. Social researchers at the University of Chicago began defining neighbourhoods from the perspective of crime prevention as far back as the 1920s. That work continues today under the umbrella of Robert Sampson’s concept “collective efficacy” – at least within the field of criminology. 

However, in the urban planning world, the concept of neighbourhood cohesion and liveability is well entrenched as an empirical reality. In 2013, Charles Montgomery published his book "Happy City - Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design” to capture the flavour of a happy and flourishing city. From his view, happiness was more than pleasure – it was how interested and engaged you are in neighbourhood life.

Happiness, it appears, is not just a feeling. It has powerful implications for safety. Our work in SafeGrowth confirms that thesis. 

But what of the concept of “happiness”? What defines that? 

 

Safe public access to beautiful natural scenery and a quiet sunset walk. Many cities limit beachfront and water access for private property owners and thus deprive opportunities for such moments.

INSIGHTS FROM THE WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT

Every year, the World Happiness Report uses data from the Gallup World Poll, which surveys around 1,000 people in over 140 countries. People are asked to rate how satisfied they are with their lives on a scale from 0 to 10. The survey also includes questions about kindness, generosity (like donating to charity or helping a stranger), and trust (for example, whether someone believes a lost wallet would be returned by a neighbour, a stranger, or the police).

For the seventh year in a row, Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world. What’s behind their success? Researchers point to two main ingredients: generosity and trust.  

People in Finland believe they can rely on others and feel connected to their communities. This sense of expected kindness—knowing that those around you will likely help you out—is a powerful driver of happiness.

Colourful street celebrations, festivals, music, and dance.
Plentiful street activities offer opportunities for joy. But that is only
one part of the story. Generosity and Trust are key.  

DO HAPPY PEOPLE MAKE SAFER NEIGHBOURHOODS?

The World Happiness Report shows that strong social connections are key to our happiness and well-being, and those connections often start in our neighbourhoods.

From our work with SafeGrowth, we’ve seen how important well-designed, healthy, and socially active neighbourhoods are for safety. Things like good housing, walkable streets, local shops, youth activities, clean parks, good lighting, and public art all help create places where people want to spend time and connect with others.

The public realm is key for happiness. Careful urban design of
public spaces matter, like sitting spaces to watch street life.

Just as important are the relationships people build—what we call social cohesion. When neighbours trust each other and work together, they create safer, more livable communities.

Traditional CPTED focuses on controlling the physical environment to reduce crime, often through what's known as “crime opportunity theory.” But we believe something is missing in that approach: the opportunity for people to build positive, supportive relationships and enjoy a high quality of life. 

It’s not just about eliminating crime opportunities – it’s about creating opportunities for people to choose a better path forward. It’s not just about reducing crime—it's about creating the conditions for a good life. This is a kind of “livability opportunity theory”. And that begins right in the neighbourhood.

Innovating Transit Safety - What one city might learn from another

In 2024, New York deployed the National Guard to patrol subways
 - photo courtesy of Flickr via Creative Commons

by Gregory Saville

Comparing crime between cities is always a challenge. Crime rates, cultures, and demographics vary widely. This is especially the case with different transit systems where light rail station designs and social environments differ. 

With these caveats in mind, looking at the safety strategies in the public transit systems of Portland’s TriMet and Calgary Transit provides a unique opportunity to explore how transit security evolves and how Calgary (and other cities) might learn from a unique program in Portland: the Safety Response Team (SRT). 

(Editorial Rant: I am mindful of the recent US/Canada tariff war. I have my own opinions on that fiasco that will remain out of this blog. But now, perhaps more than ever, it is important to acknowledge how different cities can share important lessons from each other to make places safer for all our citizens! Rant done!) 

Different Cities, Different Systems

I have seen security footage of recent violent incidents on both the Calgary and Portland light rail systems. Clearly, neither system is immune from crime, even though overall rates of violence on public transit, compared to other areas in the city, are exceedingly low. 

Calgary Transit light rail - photo Greenwood714, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I have also spent time on both transit systems, having taught SafeGrowth in both cities. I love spending time in both cities! 

Calgary and Portland are distinct in many ways. Calgary’s metropolitan area has about 1.4 million residents, while Portland’s metro population is closer to 2.5 million. Portland’s TriMet system covers 59 miles of light rail with 149 stations, compared to Calgary’s CTrain, which spans 27 miles with 42 stations. Calgary Transit moves about 106 million riders annually, whereas TriMet serves 67 million riders. 

Portland's TriMet light rail Tilikum Crossing
Photo Steve Morgan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Portland also has a higher murder rate than Calgary (and more handguns in the US). Other types of crime rates, however, are not so different and since last year Calgary has seen an increase in the proportion of gun-related homicides. 

Calgary Transit employs about 140 peace officers, giving it a ratio of 3.11 officers per station. TriMet’s system, by contrast, has a much lower security/police officer-to-station ratio—approximately 1.06 per station (Portland uses a combination of security officers and law enforcement officers who respond when called). 

Despite these differences, Portland’s Safety Response Team (SRT) represents an innovation that Calgary could benefit from, even within its own distinct system.

The Portland SRT: A Social Response to Transit Safety

As we learned from Beth Dufek’s three-part blogs on TriMet’s SRT - the Safety Response Team (November 2023, January 2024, and March, 2024), it was a response to increasing safety concerns on the system. Rather than focusing purely on enforcement, SRT members take a different approach: they are unarmed, patrol in teams of 4, trained in conflict resolution and first aid skills. They use a Smartsheet on their phones to carefully track all interactions (in 2023, SRT had 11,354 interactions and provided 8,022 people with services).

TriMet's SRT group - January 2023 
Photo courtesy of TriMet

They discourage inappropriate and illegal behavior through engagement and, where possible, not enforcement. They also conduct social service outreach, providing referrals for housing, mental health support, and addiction treatment. The team even carries Narcan to intervene in opioid overdoses.

This program has gained national recognition. In 2023, the American Public Transportation Association awarded TriMet its highest honor for security and safety innovations, largely due to the impact of the SRT.

In contrast, Calgary Transit relies more on traditional enforcement. Its peace officers are sworn officers who can issue fines, make arrests, and carry batons and handcuffs. While effective in crime deterrence, this approach does not inherently offer a similar social service outreach that the SRT offers. Calgary does have an “ambassador program” with transit employees who help customers with route information and inquiries, but that is a far cry from the SRT. 

Conducting safety audits of a TriMet station in Portland
during SafeGrowth training

SafeGrowth and the Future of Transit Safety

Over the past few years, we conducted SafeGrowth Training with TriMet’s security team and the SRT. By applying SafeGrowth principles, the TriMet security team, along with their SRT, is equipped to create safer transit spaces not just through security, but through 1st and 2nd Generation CPTED, proactive engagement, and problem-solving.

Calgary Transit has taken steps to address safety, including increasing peace officers by 25% in 2023 and deploying security guards at select stations. However, the question remains: could a model like the SRT, rooted in social outreach and engagement, provide an additional layer of safety beyond enforcement? Given that nearly half of Calgarians still avoid transit due to safety concerns, it may be time to explore such an approach.

Moving Forward

The challenges of transit safety won’t be solved by enforcement alone. Transit systems across Canada and the US face challenges from declining ridership, public fears, and crime. For example, last year, New York deployed 1,000 National Guard troops on the subway system in response to some high-profile crimes and increasing fears. This was despite questions about their ill-preparedness for policing tasks and public concerns that, instead of feeling reassured, some citizens feel more uncomfortable about soldiers with machine guns on subway platforms. 

Portland at night - SafeGrowth training with public transportation   

There are better ways forward. Portland’s TriMet SRT offers a glimpse into what a different model can look like—one that combines security with social outreach. 

Calgary Transit has made strides in bolstering its security presence, but adding a program similar to the SRT could help address safety concerns in a way that enforcement alone cannot. As transit agencies worldwide explore new models of safety, it may be time for Calgary and other cities to take a closer look at what’s working in Portland.

Extinction or Evolution? CPTED Guidelines

The new Under Armor development on the Baltimore Peninsula.
Urban design is a major force in the modern city. 

by Gregory Saville

I was recently asked to review CPTED guidelines for a national government, the kind of thing builders, architects, and developers will use across that country. There are many CPTED guidelines posted on the website of the International CPTED Association

CPTED guidelines fit into the broader strategy called urban design guidelines. Many people do not really understand the concept of design guidelines or why urban design guidelines are needed. Even urban designers question their use. Paul Goldberger, an architectural critic for the New Yorker, commented in 2003 in The Next American City magazine (now Next City):

 “…design guidelines are a safety net. But they also, almost invariably, prevent anything creative, fresh, interesting or different from happening. They force things toward a banal middle.”

Some design checklists are plodding, time-consuming, and extensive. They can also slow development, a disaster for some projects on a tight fiscal budget. This can be a problem! Consider when affordable housing and economic activity are needed quickly in a struggling city. Shouldn’t we streamline new building regulations, not slow them down? Design guidelines are the poster children for red tape.  

If CPTED guidelines make that worse, should they vanish? Do they accomplish the goal of a safer environment?

 

The atrium of the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC.
Some say that beautiful architecture is not possible with design guidelines 

A STAPLE IN URBAN DESIGN 

Urban design guidelines are pervasive and have been around for decades. They are a staple in the urban design world, especially in municipal government. Public sector urban planners walk a tightrope between protecting public safety on one hand, and being careful not to overload private developers with already burdensome regulations and building controls. 

But what about CPTED design guidelines? 

I have created CPTED guidelines many times in different cities over the years, including co-authoring the extensive Saskatoon CPTED/SafeGrowth guidelines with urban planner, Elisabeth Miller.  

CPTED design guidelines also appear in cities like New York City and Vancouver. Despite political hullabaloo in that city opposing CPTED, Vancouver still uses CPTED guidelines.

Vancouver Place Stadium. Vancouver, BC, still uses CPTED guidelines
despite the political hullabaloo to the contrary.

DO CPTED GUIDELINES WORK?

Back in 1996, I helped design some CPTED guidelines for the City of Langley, BC. Since then, obviously, they have been updated. When I read the updated Langley CPTED guidelines, the problem became obvious. Whoever updated them did not read the current research. In fact, many CPTED guidelines are hopelessly out of date and no longer align with current research. Or, more to the point, they present CPTED without describing how environmental context determines success or failure.

The governmental BC Housing CPTED guidelines are a prime offender. Despite a 2019 publication date, those guidelines still promote practices that have been shown not to work. Others can make things worse. Some of the claims are, at best, specious:  

“Research into criminal behaviour indicates that the decision to offend or not to offend is more influenced by cues to the perceived risk of being caught than by cues to reward or ease of entry.” 

If you read the research, you discover a more nuanced truth. Research studies say something quite different. Consider psychological research of  environmental influences on criminal behavior:

"Opportunities present themselves, but only a small number of people exploit those opportunities in a criminal manner [Environmental] changes do not transform a criminal into a responsible person. Attributing criminal behavior to external circumstances perpetuates a deterministic view that ignores the role of choice and tends to absolve people of personal responsibility."

The International CPTED Association publishes the
latest research and statements about the state of the art

THE REQUIRED INGREDIENTS

That is the problem with CPTED design guidelines. Without instructions on the necessary research that must accompany any application of CPTED, there is no way to understand the context of a particular crime situation. Without context, CPTED is risky. As the International CPTED Association suggests for certified practitioners: “Context is Everything”. 

You can definitely reduce crime risks by using the right CPTED strategies, but it’s important to gather data and do research first. Only after this risk assessment research can you figure out the best approach. For example, adding more lights might help reduce crime in one area, but in another spot, you might need to turn off the lights and try a different approach.

Good CPTED strategies aren't a one-size-fits-all solution. If you come across guidelines that only offer outdated, basic CPTED ideas without context or fail to consider modern approaches like 2nd Generation CPTED or the role of psychology and sociology in crime behavior, just disregard them! They're as outdated as dinosaurs. They are extinct.

Home of the late Elvis Presley in Palm Springs, California.
Can design guidelines produce beautiful architecture and safe places? 

A CPTED guideline for reducing crime is not like an engineering guideline for construction. Stairway materials, weight, and strength are a simple matter of physics. Materials have known scientific properties. Few, if any, such social or psychological “materials” exist consistently in the social world. Human behavior, it turns out, is exceedingly complex. 

STICK WITH CPTED AS IT HAS EVOLVED 

Crime risks can definitely be reduced, and CPTED strategies can be effective. But basic 1st Generation CPTED strategies don't always work unless you also do a proper risk assessment first. If the guidelines don’t explain how to do that research, you're setting yourself up for failure.

This principle is clearly stated on the ICA website. Governments would be wise - and legally prudent - to follow their advice: 

"As with all CPTED principles, there are no single strategies that will reduce all crime; they should be applied in combinations based on a thorough analysis of the local context. However, the history of CPTED suggests that comprehensive urban planning and community development requires consideration of all First and Second Generation CPTED principles."

The community overstory - an unconscious network of voluntary controls

In Calgary, Canada, part of the city overstory is influenced
by the proximity of the Rocky Mountains

by Larry Leach

What is your community’s overstory? In Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent book, Revenge of the Tipping Point, he discusses the power of an overstory. An overstory is the story we tell ourselves collectively about where we live. If most people in an area adopt this view, it becomes the community overstory. The story can have many elements and colours, and it influences human behaviour in the community.

An example of an overstory in my city, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, is Cowtown: Home of the World Famous Calgary Stampede. For 10 days every July, people dress up in Western garb, including cowboy hats and boots. The overstory of the city during this 10-day party? Anything goes! The increase in public intoxication, social disorder, assaults, and similar behaviour increases dramatically. 

On a regular day, these people are all law-abiding people. But add a dramatic Stampede Week overstory, and people behave differently. 

Consider the proverb, When in Rome, do as the Romans. That is built on the idea of the overstory. Remember the advertising slogan What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas? That, too, creates an overstory. 

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Ancient proverb about human behaviour.
Photo of the Great [Roman] Bath, Bath, England,
by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CHANGING BEHAVIOUR

Why would your behaviour change when you are in a different place? It might be a survival instinct, but it’s the idea of living up to community expectations in most places. In other words, if they can do it, why can’t I? 

We decide collectively the standards that we are willing to accept in our communities. A half century ago, Jane Jacobs once echoed this behavioural pattern in Death and Life of Great American Cities when she wrote, “the public peace is.. kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls…and enforced by people themselves.”

Gladwell adds the final ingredient into the overstory recipe when he describes what he calls the law of the few, or also known as the law of thirds (you need one-third of the people in a place to behave in a certain way for it to become part of your overstory).

Calgary Stampede revelers at the annual celebration

WHAT SETS THE TONE?

An overstory can be set in an area because of physical circumstances. If you live near mountains, you might have skiing as part of your overstory. Your area may produce better winter athletes, and mountain resorts might attract wealth. If you live near the ocean, you might have a strong surfing culture or fishing industry. If you live in the Caribbean, you might not have a Bobsleigh team. But if you create one, as Jamaica did in the 1998 Calgary Olympics, you may have changed your overstory.

Gladwell examines places that have socially engineered themselves to create an overstory and describes how it can produce some unintended consequences. One place he studied was a community full of high achieving young people in education and sports that ended up with a high youth suicide rate. The overstory of success in the community turned into disaster. As one writer explained: “Teens who didn’t fit into the narrow definition of success didn’t have alternative groups to seek out and find a sense of belonging.”

The overstory sets the tone for behaviour.

At the end of the book, Gladwell says 

“Overstory’s matter. You can create them. They can spread. They are powerful. And they can endure for decades… [And most importantly]… Epidemics have rules. They have boundaries. They are subject to overstories – and we are the ones to create overstories.”

 

An overstory can trigger community clean-ups and other
positive anti-crime activities   

The power of an overstory lies in the acceptance of the people in the community. Using the rule of thirds, it is possible to change community safety for the better.  

Does your community have an overstory? If so, does it work well? Is it positive?  Does it make your community safer? 

If the answer is no to these questions, then your community must work together to create a new overstory. This is one of our goals in Safegrowth. It is an ideal tool to help recreate a positive community overstory and, in turn, encourage safe behaviour. 

A beacon of truth in an age of confusion

Icon for the Era? A Ted Talk by urban planner Alexandros Washburn  

by Gregory Saville

This week, a cultural icon came to mind after watching the incredible biopic about Bob Dylan “A Complete Unknown”. 

The performance of lead actor Timotheé Chalamet was remarkable. He captured a hauntingly similar vibe to the icon himself—Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan. As a teen, I loved Dylan’s many memorable lyrics; “The ancient street’s too dead for dreaming.” The film brought my mind back to the chaotic and hopeful social revolution of the 1960s.  

That’s the thing about icons. Their ideas resonate through time partly because they speak a language of change for something better, and partly because they are a beacon of truth. They show how the status quo no longer works. They see into the future. They set the tone!

 

New York's High Line Park. The work of an icon - photo by Bryan Ledgard,
CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

“A public space is the place where citizens can meet as equals, and the place where society builds trust”– Alexandros Washburn

PLANNING ICONS? 

It’s not often you get urban planning and design icons today with that kind of relevance – icons who educate us by translating complex problems of the day into common parlance. Where are they today, those icons, when we need them most? Jane Jacobs was a powerful urban icon from the 60s, but I struggle when I look for others today.  

Some claim Richard Florida is such a person. Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto and an urban studies theorist, is famous for coining the term creative class as a trigger for urban success. Unfortunately, many of his ideas have not aged well. They have not turned out as predicted and many creative class areas become gentrification. 

That’s not to say others don’t exist with rock star potential. A few might include:

• Andres Duaney and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (American architects of Congress in New Urbanism fame) 
• Gil Penalosa (Canadian/Columbian public parks champion of people-centered design and sustainable transportation) 
• Peter Calthorpe (American author of The Next American Metropolis and creator of the pedestrian pocket) 
• Jan Gehl (Danish architect who popularized humanistic planning).

 I respect these urban thought leaders. I also don’t think they rise to the icon status of a Dylan or Jacobs. 

ALEXANDROS WASHBURN

 “It doesn’t work until it works for the pedestrian”– Alexandros Washburn 

What about Alexandros Washburn? He is a prescient thinker and his firm DRAW Global LLC consults around the world. He is an award-winning architect and former chief urban designer of New York City with innovative and ecologically sound projects across that city, like the famous High Line Park . 

 

Washburn's book, The Nature of Urban Design, empowers urbanites
and introduces a new framework for urban planning 

Washburn is a well-known advocate of resilient city design. He lives in the Red Hook neighborhood of New York City. His TED Talk unveils the kind of resilient successes that might apply to all cities.

 

New York's High Line Park is among the
top tourist destinations in the city

Listen to Washburn answer planning questions on WIRED. He definitely has some Dylanesque mojo. Why does Singapore work so well? How do we fix the sprawling nightmare that is Los Angeles? Like most icons, he answers the big questions simply, but without dumbing down the answer. 

My favorite Washburn story is the story about New York’s famous High Line Park. It was first opened in 2009 in west Manhattan, redesigned from an abandoned, elevated railway viaduct over the Meatpacking District. It was conceived by some citizens who, seizing on a similar tree-lined elevated walkway in Paris, imagined a 1.4 mile-long (2.3 kilometer) ecological, living system in the heart of New York City. 

High Line is a linear urban park, an elevated greenspace, and an art-rich, sculpture-lined promenade with children’s play areas. It was built atop what was formerly one of the worst traffic accident streets in the city once known as Death Alley.

Along with Dutch architect Piet Oudolf who curated the landscaping plan, it was Alexandros Washburn who helped design one of the most innovative urban parks in the world. 

Washburn describes his work on High Line in his planning book The Nature of Urban Design. “You improve the quality of life by improving the quality public space” They are words that sound very much like a beacon of truth.