Is CPTED placemaking?

Placemaking with community gardens in Calgary's East Village - site location
of this year's walking tour at the 2026 CPTED Conference

by Larry Leach

Is CPTED placemaking? 

I had that question asked of me in a recent meeting when I was describing CPTED. At first, I was taken aback. It seemed surprising CPTED is still unknown these days. But it is a legitimate question. 

The question took me down a path looking at how CPTED is increasingly viewed through a placemaking lens in some quarters and as a technical security tool, in others. It is basically the difference between 1st Generation CPTED and 2nd Generation CPTED. 

In Calgary, since 2025, there has been several funding opportunities for placemaking, beautification, and space activation. Programs such as Good Places Project Grants ($500-$15,000), supports murals, seating, and small public space improvements. 

Others, such as those through the Federation of Calgary Communities ($2.8 million over three years), seeks neighbourhood events, and resident-led initiatives focused on social inclusion and connection. Some grants are modest, but collectively they create real opportunities for communities to shape their own spaces.

At the same time, some funding streams support traditional secrurity measures with few references to community-building. These include cameras, security infrastructure, and other hard-target improvements by the Civic Partner Community Safety Grant ($2 million), are traditional1st Gen CPTED tactics. 

Empty parking lot in Calgary - dark, risky, and in need of attention.
But what kind?

Some funding avenues seek youth programming to prevent gang involvement and support local organizations, such as the Alberta Crime Prevention Grant (up to $150,000 per year). Others such as the Neighbourhood Grants provide up to $1,000 for resident-led projects focusing on social inclusion, anti-racism, and community connectivity. 

Are these grants for CPTED? Perhaps not in the traditional sense, but in more advanced forms, they fit perfectly into the capacity-building program objectives of SafeGrowth.

FUNDS EXIST

Contrary to popular perceptions, it turns out there are many available resources if you look hard enough. Keep in mind, the opportunities here describe only the government-related grants in my city. They do not cover opportunities in the non-profit sector, philanthropic groups, and corporate good-neighbour funding. 

We have discussed many times in this blog how funding can emerge from unexpected sources when a community organizes itself properly and learns grant writing skills. These sources include small amounts with big impact, such as the growing phenomenon of micro-grants recently examined by the Council on Criminal Justice study “Small Grants, Big Impact: How Microgrants can Boost Community Safety and Justice.” 

They also include sources for multi-year funding from diverse sources. For example, one 2018 blog describes how a non-profit, community development corporation in Philadelphia has, through their 10-year neighbourhood plan, leveraged multiple funding sources for over $100 million to build over 200 units of affordable housing over the years.

Placemaking near Amsterdam's Historic Museum - sometimes popups can activate a place with eyes-on-the-street - photo Flickr, CC BY-SA 3.0 

HOW TO KNOW WHAT WORKS

There are plenty of great funding opportunities, even if many are small in scale. The challenge is deciding which approach is appropriate. A mural, a bench, or a neighbourhood event may strengthen connection and informal guardianship. In other situations, cameras or access control may be justified. In many cases, the real need may be something else entirely.

How do you know if a neighbourhood needs cameras and fences, or whether there is a risk for gang activity? How do you know if there is something else the community needs? How do you answer those questions? 

Some CPTED programming mentions risk assessment and some CPTED projects include research. But not all, and certainly not enough. That is what led to the growth of SafeGrowth and its action-research/local expert method of community research to answer those questions. 

 

Look at the stats and the maps - but ultimately the best way to learn
an area is to walk with those who know it day and night.

We use the resident experts who live in the community to tell us what the community needs are. The truth is, without collaborative community/expert risk assessments, we may be solving a problem that may not exist or - more importantly - we may miss the problem that needs fixing but has no funding.

Without a careful look at local assets, risks, and community priorities, it is difficult to know which direction makes sense. That is why the International CPTED Association produced a white paper on CPTED methodology in which they insist that CPTED must evolve beyond design checklists and check sheets. 

That process may lead to placemaking. It may lead to targeted security measures. Often it leads to a mix of both. The key is that the solution emerges from the community context rather than being assumed in advance.

So is CPTED placemaking?

It can be.

The ripple effect begins here - the 2026 Canada/US CPTED Conference

Larry Leach working on neighbourhood activities with the 12CSI organization in Calgary. Larry is a member of the 2026 Canada/US CPTED Conference planning team. 

by Larry Leach

Recently, we have started putting together an exciting new conference – the 2nd Annual Conference for the US/Canada chapters of the International CPTED Association. It will be on October 2-4, 2026, in my hometown of Calgary, Alberta. I am working alongside the great folks who ran the 2025 conference in Palm Springs, California, and it has been equal parts exciting and a fantastic learning experience. 

With a little under a year to go, we have many details ironed out and ready. I expect to learn and accomplish so much more working with this inspiring group comprising members of the joint Canada/U.S. CPTED team. I am a small cog in an impressive wheel. 

More than that, we have plans for my organization, Calgary's 12 Community Safety Initiative (12CSI), to attract staff and practicum students to this conference. It will be an ideal opportunity to make us a better organization. 

My attendance at other conferences allows me to learn the best practices and it offers an opportunity to network and promote the conference. The feelings that some of the conference delegate experience before and after the conference will carry forward and lead to future opportunities for 12CSI and others. This is a win-win opportunity.

Is this a shameless plug for the conference? Admittedly, it is a nice byproduct! My involvement, and the time I spend with like-minded people, adds a spring to my step, and it makes me a better servant to our organization here in Calgary. That is my main goal. 

 

Most assuredly, it is a feather in the cap of our small local organization to have me involved on the conference planning team. And if you're of a certain age, you may remember the commercial: “I told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on”. That sentiment really speaks to the magic of a good discussion, a good TED Talk, or conference networking and planning like this. You never know the ripple effect that it may have far beyond what you imagine. That’s exciting!

The prize at the end of the rainbow? First, the topics we’ll be discussing at this conference may spark the very project your community is ready for. Second, you will learn how to launch meaningful projects by talking with experts from across the world. Third, speakers will come from all walks of life and from many different professions – community organizers, police, criminologists, association leaders, planners, architects, and many others. 

Hilton Garden Inn overlooking downtown Calgary
- site of the 2026 CPTED Conference

Take a look where you live. Are there problems that have lingered too long? Are there opportunities to make things better that no one seems willing to act on? Do you and your neighbours want a real say in what happens, rather than waiting for government or big business to decide for you?

TURNING CONFERENCE IDEAS INTO ACTION 

If you don’t shape your community, someone else will, and you may not like the outcome.

A community project does more than build something physical. It educates, inspires, and sends a clear signal that people care. It becomes a symbol of who you are together. Building a sense of community, cutting crime and improving livability are all important goals. Whether it’s a curb extension to calm traffic, a basketball court, a shared garden, or a new community hall, the specific project matters less than the act of starting.

You may not raise all the money you hoped for. The final result may look different than you imagined. It may take longer than planned. But the process, the energy, the collaboration, and the shared purpose - all these can leave a legacy that lasts for years, even decades. It’s that first effort that inspires the next generation to take it further and make it better.

So what should you do? 

Come to the conference. Meet us and share ideas. Learn what success looks like. Mostly...just start! 

Right now.

Homelessness: We have all the answers!

 

Helping the homeless - We have the tools to help
Photo Ed Yourdon from New York City, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

by Larry Leach

A quote recently hit me — something I’d been feeling for a long time. Malcolm Gladwell put it perfectly:


“The tools necessary to control an epidemic are sitting on the table, right in front of us. We can let the unscrupulous take them. Or we can pick them up ourselves and use them to build a better world.”

That’s exactly where we are with CPTED, SafeGrowth, and the broader crisis in our cities.

We have blogged on the topic of homelessness numerous times including Greg’s blog about the state of homelessness in 2024, Mateja’s blog on homelessness in a European city, and also in Australia, and Jon Munn's blog on the situation in Victoria, BC.

We already have the tools. We already know what works. Finland has proven it and last year we blogged on that country’s remarkable success.

Other countries have also been successful. The problem isn’t strategy — it’s will. What we face is not a lack of evidence, but a kind of Titanic denial — a refusal to accept who must act, and a reluctance to work together toward the solutions already in front of us.

The table is set. The only question now is: Who’s going to reach for the tools?

CANADA AND THE U.S.

In Canada alone, there are hundreds of Millions of dollars going to large agencies in the major cities and that can lead to different motives and outcomes with no one level of government or organization directly responsible or accountable for the outcomes. 

In fact many of these agencies, including shelters, detox, recovery communities, supervised consumption sites and housing get funding from civic, provincial and federal governments at the same time. Some agencies are involved in a number of these activities.

As we say in SafeGrowth, the experts are the people that live in the community. The closer decisions and actions are to the people in the community the better the solution will be for the residents.

U.S. homeless patterns - source: U.S. Dept of Housing and Urban Development 

 

Canadian homeless patterns - source Housing Infrastructure Canada

The trends show an inconsistency in addressing the problem. If we manage social issues, they will continue to manage us.  The rhetoric in the early 2000’s in Canada was “the plan to end homelessness” in every major city with goals and target dates. 

An example of this was Calgary’s plan to end homelessness in 2008. It was a 10 year plan. Calgary’s was the first to get to the 10 year mark and there are some learnings that can be found in detail here. 

WE KNOW THE ANSWERS 

We Already Know the Answers — So Why Aren’t We Acting?

Seven key barriers to ending homelessness were identified in 2018 — and in 2025, nothing has changed. These barriers include: lack of affordable housing, poor coordination, overreliance on short-term fixes, economic downturns, funding gaps, rising newcomer populations, and weak data systems.

Not one level of government has taken direct responsibility for addressing them, and progress remains glacial. Any attempts to move forward are, as the saying goes, a day late and a dollar short.

But the solutions already exist — and Finland has shown the world how.

I had the chance to visit Finland and meet Juha Kahila, head of international affairs for Y-Säätiö, the country’s largest non-profit landlord. Juha regularly speaks in Canada, sharing insights with governments and agencies.

Y-Säätiö - Finland's 4th largest landlord committed to the Housing First program 

Finland is clearly different from Canada or the U.S., but some of their most effective policies could be adapted here — if we had the political will.

Most importantly: Finland made municipalities fully responsible for outreach, housing, and support services — not through grants, but by directly employing everyone involved. These same municipalities also manage healthcare, with outreach teams embedded in health clinics. Homelessness, addiction, and mental health are treated as connected health issues.

Finland shelter for homeless

The results? Helsinki reduced its shelter beds from 6,000 to just 600 — not by building massive new facilities, but by transitioning people into housing. When I toured one of their low-barrier shelters, I saw modest rooms with no more than 12 beds each, and upper floors dedicated to transitional housing for men, women, and couples.

Small-scale shelter spaces. Integrated mental health support. Full municipal accountability.

THE WAY FORWARD

By no means are these the only changes that need to happen, but the two simple ideas of making one level of government fully responsible for the sector and making it closer to healthcare can make a HUGE impact of the seven reasons the Calgary Plan to end Homelessness didn’t achieve its intended outcome. 

Making our shelter spaces smaller and turning some of the spaces into housing addresses the remaining factors that made the initiative fail.

By addressing these changes, we’ll know who is responsible to address the issue and make the necessary changes and our communities will be safer and more connected and can spend more time working on social cohesion rather than trying to address the social disorder that impacts many residents in many communities. 

With no one in charge, we will continue to suffer a patchwork of well-meaning agencies and small volunteer groups trying as best they can, with little to no coordination.

It’s not complex. We already know what works.


The only thing missing is action.

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 Catalyst for climate action and sustainable communities

Alberta's glacier-crowned Mt. Athabasca, in Jasper Park - a symbol of connectedness. Water runs west to the Pacific, north to the Arctic, and east to Hudson's Bay. The nearby town of Jasper was recently destroyed by climate wildfires
- photo courtesy Florian Fuchs, CC BY 3.0 Wiki Commons

by Anna Brassard

We have often stated that SafeGrowth is less of a crime prevention strategy and more of a neighborhood planning method. True, we usually begin by tackling crime and using tactics like 1st and 2nd-generation CPTED. But from the beginning, we have built many of our ideas on the urban planning Smart Growth movement, which has at its core a sustainable environment and a response to climate change. 

CPTED, of course, is none of those things. That we are able to have such a potent impact on reducing crime and building cohesion convinces us that climate change programs are a powerful magnifying force with benefits far and wide.

 

Climate change fire near Los Angeles. Our neighbourhoods need to
learn resilience strategies - Photo Eddiem360, CC BY-SA 4.0 

EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS

Some of our earliest SafeGrowth programs began due to extreme weather events, such as our work in the Hollygrove neighborhood following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We are increasingly seeing extreme weather events with increased flooding and wildfires. Our cities are getting hotter and hotter with few places for reprieve from the heat. Concrete jungles, indeed! Forest fires burn around the world, displacing many. 

Jasper National Park, in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, was recently evacuated due to out-of-control wildfires that consumed 30% of the historic town of Jasper.  Alongside extreme weather, aging infrastructure is beginning to fail. The need to address climate change is becoming increasingly evident. 

A recent study measuring the effectiveness of worldwide climate policies that significantly reduced emissions over the past twenty years provides guidance for meeting climate targets. It concluded that a mix of carrots and sticks is required. Policy is one piece of the puzzle. 

How do we approach sustainability at the community level?  This is where SafeGrowth arises. A pioneering initiative, SafeGrowth aims to empower communities to address climate change and build a more sustainable future. By focusing on a range of interconnected issues like transportation, housing, streetscapes, and land use in conjunction with crime prevention, SafeGrowth helps communities identify and implement solutions that address climate change and enhance the overall quality of life.

 

The Glenmore Reservoir supplies Calgary with water - until an outdated water feeder line failed in June leading to weeks of shortages  - photo Qyd, CC BY-SA 3.0

WATER DISASTER IN CALGARY 

Calgary recently suffered a catastrophic water main break of its main waterline that provides water to 40% of the city. Montreal also recently suffered a significant water main break with the subsequent flooding of homes and businesses. In Calgary, residents and businesses were placed under Stage 4 water restrictions to reduce water usage by 25% until repairs to the water main could be made. 

Fortunately, the community stepped up in this emergency and found ways to reduce water consumption including flushing their toilets less often, installing rain barrels to water their gardens, and taking shorter showers. Initially, residents worked together and there were few tickets for violations issues. After an extensive review of the entire water system, it was discovered that many segments of the waterlines needed immediate repair to prevent another imminent failure. The city returned to Stage 4 water restrictions so repairs could be made. 

Recent news headline about water feeder line failure in June, 2024

This time around, residents and businesses were less enthusiastic about reducing water consumption, and many tickets were issued for water usage violations. Apparently, social cohesion is not easy to sustain in climate emergencies, possibly since residents have only limited experience with intensive community collaboration. 

AN EARLY EXAMPLE OF COHESION

SafeGrowth offers a path forward for communities seeking to create a more resilient, equitable, and prosperous future. When we teach our classes, including a recent training in Vancouver, our team was taught 1st, and 2nd CPTED as tools to address the physical, and social aspects of the neighbourhood. This is the beginning of connecting with the natural and built environment. By working on long-term neighbourhood plans and crime reduction projects on a regular basis, different groups within the community learn the skills of project development. 

Our Livability Academy is the next step in furthering collaborative programming as we discovered in New Orleans and Philadelphia. That is a longer-term program of free, weekly public education classes in which dozens of community members learn the skills and power of collaboration. Now that 3rd Generation CPTED has been introduced, there are specific tactics for economic, public health, social, and environmental sustainability – the very core principle of environmental resilience. 

Collaborative teams using the SafeGrowth model create innovative visions and plans for a more resilient, safe, and sustainable neighbourhood future. The latest water crisis in Calgary reaffirmed the need to train neighbourhood residents across the city in collaborative action before the disaster shows up. 

 

CPTED Event of the Year - ICA Conference 2017

Beneath the "Loop" in Chicago - site of recent SafeGrowth training

By Greg Saville

In partnership with our remarkable sponsor, LISC Safety, last month we introduced the SafeGrowth/CPTED program to Chicago. Four teams from different cities, including Chicago, are now well into their field work and project development.

Chicago is in some ways a coming home for CPTED. While the original ideas for CPTED emerged 50 years ago from books by Jane Jacobs and Oscar Newman in New York, it was a century ago in 1920s Chicago where America's first crime research emerged on neighborhood development, juvenile delinquency and crime prevention. And that brings us to the present state of CPTED!

THE 2017 ICA CPTED CONFERENCE

That early work on neighborhoods in Chicago is backdrop to this year’s International CPTED Conference in another great city, Calgary, Canada. CPTED practitioners will meet on Aug 7 and 8 under the theme My Street, My Neighbourhood, My City - CPTED In Action.

This year’s keynote will be delivered by LISC Safety director, Julia Ryan. That is appropriate given not only LISC's introduction of SafeGrowth/CPTED into Chicago, but also because LISC has been doing this kind of work for almost a decade. Julia will describe how LISC uses community development as a key to success.

Julia Ryan, ICA conference keynote, Calgary 2017

Other themes at the conference will include:

• CPTED implementation, 
• Building downtown partnerships, 
• CPTED in Latin America, 
• Citizen participation, 
• CPTED in education,
• Graffiti, 
• 2nd Generation CPTED, 
• Geodata and mapping, and 
• Tiny Home Villages for homeless.

Speakers will travel to Calgary from across the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Honduras, Chile, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa, India, and Burkina Faso.

Nowhere in the world will you see such an international cast of talent and experience. This is a conference you don’t want to miss!

The Century of the Neighborhood

Taking a break from deliberations at the 2015 SafeGrowth Summit
Engaged citizens from around the world

Four months ago I posted about President Obama’s eulogy following a racial massacre in South Carolina.

This morning we heard news of another massacre, this by terrorists in Paris. In today’s global village a tragedy for one is a tragedy for all. From that view, these are times of storms.

“When you come out of the storm,” said novelist Murakami, “you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

THE SAFEGROWTH SUMMIT

Last week a small group of SafeGrowth advocates and some likeminded friends from around the world mapped a new way out of these storms in the first-ever SafeGrowth Summit.

One of the SafeGrowth work teams - two day of visioning the future

We met encircled by Canada’s Rocky Mountains in Canmore, Alberta. Hailing from different countries and cities small and large, participants included residents, artists, planners, police officers,  architects, criminologist, activists, but mostly active and engaged citizens.

Our task? Search for practical paths that build community resilience and lead away from crime and violence.

Four diverse teams found their own ideal visions. One crafted neighborhood hubs, a 21st Century shared public gathering space far beyond today’s community center. Another began building a tailored style of hands-on curricula to educate a new generation of neighborhood leaders.

Each team resonated with the idea that it is within the geography of the neighborhood where solutions arise.

Local graffiti artists running their first-ever art show for Summit participants

Following the Summit participants shared their ideas with residents of the 12 CSI Neighbourhoods at a social event on Calgary’s International Avenue, an event punctuated by the inspiring art show of local graffiti artists and music from a youth quartet from Calgary's Multiculural Orchestra.

We are writing Summit results to publish a book in the spring. For now teamwork continues; it continues to frame a way out of the storms of violence, crime and intolerance facing us in the years ahead. And it continues to verify, once and for all, the 21st Century belongs to the neighborhood.

Last day performance by a youth quartet from the Calgary Multicultural Orchestra 

CPTED event of the year - 2015 ICA conference

Looking down from the Calgary Tower observation deck - photo imgur at buzzfeed 

If you have not been following crime prevention or CPTED websites you may not know about a must-see event - the upcoming 2015 International CPTED Association bi-annual conference. This year it is October 19-20 in Calgary, Canada, where the ICA was born twenty years ago.

In 1996 there were few, if any, regional CPTED organizations and there were no international CPTED organizations. Even today it remains the only global association offering a certification program for CPTED practitioners.

The bi-annual conference is an ICA showcase for new theories, emerging practices, and creative ideas in crime prevention through environmental design.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

The roster does not disappoint. Consider these topics:

• Translating CPTED into transport environment during London’s Olympics
• The return of displacement - CPTEDs nightmare
• Implementing CPTED from Queensland, Australia to Pompano Beach, Florida
• Urban design and criminality in Brazil
• The crime capital of Canada - a community response
• Inclusive urban spaces in Latin America for women
• Perspectives of crime and disorder in South Africa
• CPTED in cyber space

Sunrise over Calgary, site of the 2015 CPTED conference - photo by Michael C, Tourism Calgary 

Guest speakers include Paul Ekblom, professor at Central Saint Martin’s University of the Arts, London. Ekblom is a leading author and researcher on CPTED and will talk about “CPTED: Are our terms and concepts fit for purpose, and if not how might they be improved?”

Michael Sutton is a criminologist from Nottingham Trent University in the UK and will talk about “The routine activity theory of crime masquerading as causality”

Dr. Randal Atlas, myself, and ICA Executive Director Barry Davidson will facilitate an open session about homelessness and CPTED and what practitioners might do to better respond.

Rachel Armitage, professor of criminology and director of the Secure Societies Instutute a the University of Huddersfield, UK and Chris Joyce of the West Yorkshire Police will present “Why my house; Exploring offender perspectives on risk and protective factors in residential housing design”

For more information see the ICA website.

The writing on the wall

Anna Brassard is a Canadian urban planner and consultant specializing in SafeGrowth and urban design. Her consulting firm Brassard and Associates is based in Calgary. She kindly submitted this Guest Blog about her son.
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Graffiti can be street art that enhances

I got the call about my son that no parent wants to get – especially a parent who has spent the greater part of her career practicing SafeGrowth. I was scared for him and furious with him at the same time.

My son is an artist. He is incredibly talented...and he loves graffiti art. We’ve had many heated discussions about what is wrong and right with graffiti.

To him it is creativity, self-expression and a way to be recognized by his peers – important to the young adolescent. To me it is vandalism and contributes to blight in communities. He complains that there are no legitimate places for he and his friends to paint; that there are no “free walls” in Calgary.

I understand his frustration!

The work that he and friends do is incredible. Other cities have embraced graffiti and use it to enhance their communities. Calgary is not one of those places. They do have programs to wrap utility boxes and paint underpasses but these are not easily accessible.

I should have seen the writing on the wall. He got caught!

This was a blessing in disguise. He entered a restorative justice program called Up The Wall offered by the Calgary Boys and Girls Club, City of Calgary Culture and the Calgary Police Service. He has spent 4 hours, twice a week for the past 3 months in this program and he has loved it.

GRADUATION DAY 

I attended the art show on the final day of the program and it was outstanding! Art work done over the weeks on display: painted walls, painted shirts and most of all faces beaming with pride as parents, friends, mentors and organizers admired their work.

Art on display on graduation day

Embracing graffiti culture isn’t about legitimizing vandalism or giving them free reign. It boils down to the age-old problem of one generation’s respect for another. In this case it is about the respect for public and private property versus respect for artistic expression and its place in society.

I learned from my son this can’t be a one-sided conversation. It will take all of us to find solutions and create a multi-coloured picture of our city, not one in black and white.

Slutwalks and risky behavior

Walking and texting late at night in a Calgary alleyway - photo Randall Atlas

Strolling downtown late at night after Calgary's ICA CPTED conference we came across this young woman walking by herself in an alleyway. What struck us was not how she was dressed or that she was alone or that the alley was well lit. What amazed us was that she texted the entire time as she walked down an isolated alley quite oblivious to her environment.

It seemed risky.

Then I thought about the Slutwalk phenomenon launched after the victim-blaming remarks by Toronto police constable during a 2011 crime prevention presentation.

"I've been told I'm not supposed to say this – however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized," the constable commented to a group of women at York University.

He later apologized for his remarks but they led to city-wide (and later world-wide) annual Slutwalks.

The phenomenon has been both lauded and criticized by others, including feminists.

One motive for Slutwalks is the persistent and idiotic views on the topic. According to Huffington Post one Manitoba judge "condemned a rape survivor for wearing a tube top, no bra, high heels and makeup which he implied led her to sexual assault." The judge also implied "the assailant had succumbed to inviting circumstances."

That thinking is absurd. It is also still alive and well.

None of which changes the fact that mindless oblivion while texting late at night in an isolated alleyway is just not a good idea.

CPTED Conference follows historic floods

This blog often ponders a future with eco-friendly, green technologies to create safer communities. Consider anti-graffiti moss, Saint Paul's transit-oriented development, last year's Rio + 20 environment conference and last week's blog on 3rd Generation CPTED.

Given catastrophe's from global warming these past few years, it's remarkable doubters still deny human-created climate change. I suppose some will always bypass science and spin alternate histories of a wishful and more stable past.

Even those riding the wayback machine cannot spin recent weather tragedies like the terrible Calgary floods last week. Like it or not, climate change is here to stay and every profession and community is affected. (Prior to 1990 only 3 disasters in Canadian history topped a half billion dollars in damages. In the past decade alone there have been 9).

It is ironic, yet sad, that next week's International CPTED Association conference will follow the 2013 Alberta Floods. That tragedy saw 100,000 residents evacuated, 4 deaths and $3 billion in damages. Thankfully the floods have subsided and the 2013 ICA conference is proceeding.

Calgary residents have done a remarkable job of recovery. The YouTube below tells their story.

The ICA conference carries the title: Creating Safer Communities - More Than Design. Nowhere is there a better time and place to consider the reality of that title and rethink our urban design and safety options in the years ahead.