SafeGrowth and 안심 - A shared vision with Korean CPTED researchers

Skyline of Seoul, South Korea, by night. Over 25 million in the metro area, one of the most advanced cities in the world. Leaping ahead with the latest CPTED - photo CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

by Gregory Saville

When the Korean CPTED delegation departed Seoul last Sunday to meet us in Denver, they traveled 16 hours and crossed 16 time zones. Twenty-four years earlier, two South Korean scholars published a study applying space syntax theory to evaluate CPTED in the International CPTED Association’s official journal, Volume 1, Issue 1.

Across that distance and span of time, South Korea has quietly become one of the world's most innovative laboratories for CPTED research and practice.

Last week we hosted visitors from the Architecture and Urban Research Institute (AURI), a government research institute in the Republic of Korea, led by Dr Eunhee Kim. The members of the group included: 

• Dr. Eunhee Kim, Director, CPTED Research Center, AURI; 
• Dr. Youngweoo Kim, Associate Research Fellow, CPTED Research Center, AURI; 
• Jaeseok Her, Assistant Research Fellow (Spatial AI and Big Data Division), AURI; 
• Hongseok Choi, doctoral candidate, City & Metropolitan Planning, University of Utah (former AURI). 

 EARLY CONNECTIONS 

Late last year, AURI reached out to us for some background on SafeGrowth, the International CPTED Association, and our generational approach to CPTED. In May, we collaborated with them in an online webinar with some of their talented researchers. That is when I learned about the astounding progress of Korean CPTED over the past 20 years, especially in a few areas where they have leapfrogged past many other places with CPTED (how many CPTED instructors teach space syntax, or even know what it means?).

Beginning a three-day tour of Denver metro at the Arvada City Hall, Colorado

Before they arrived, we read AURI's recent work using virtual reality to evaluate neighborhood design and a study on using machine learning to explore relationships between urban environments and emergency calls for service. That research reported, “green areas have been mixed in the literature, [but] this study newly demonstrates that green spaces in urban Seoul are associated with reduced 112 [911] call occurrence”. It was a finding that seems to reinforce the Third-generation CPTED environmental principle of biophilia and how green land use can reduce fears and crime rates.

This was an exciting moment! 

Eight members of the SafeGrowth Network appearing virtually from across North America, including some also from the International CPTED Association, joined Mateja and I at the introductory workshop in Arvada in welcoming our Korean guests. Their visit was a professional exchange for research and education, but I suspected they would show us more than vice versa.

 

THE SITE VISITS

Obviously, the Koreans did not need more evidence on crime hotspots, lighting, target hardening, or access control. They have decades of experience with those concepts. Instead, we toured sites showing a more complex, urban planning side of SafeGrowth and CPTED, especially Smart Growth planning of which SafeGrowth is based and in which metro Denver excels. Smart Growth integrates compact development, walkability, mixed land uses, and transportation into complete neighborhoods.

One of our sites included the successful Transit Oriented Development (TOD) in Arvada’s Old Towne centered on the RTD commuter train station. 

Arvada City Hall meeting with Mayor Lauren Simpson, City Manager Don Wick, and their respective staff members

We met our gracious hosts, Arvada City Mayor Lauren Simpson and City Manager Don Wick, and their staffs to learn about TOD governance and development issues. 

Although the modern term Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) was popularized by planner Peter Calthorpe, transit-centered neighborhoods have existed for many years in cities like Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, Vancouver, Minneapolis, Stockholm, and London. 

Yet despite their importance, TODs remain one of the least-developed areas of CPTED practice. We spent considerable time discussing how walkability, connectivity, mixed land uses, and human-scale design influence neighborhood safety and crime.

We then traveled to Lakewood’s new downtown, mixed-use development also based on Smart Growth, one of the first in the country, constructed from the ground-up twenty years ago. 

We spent time with artists at the Denver Art Society to learn about the social impact of Third Places on neighborhoods like the Arts District of Santa Fe and then followed with another Third Place, this one an adaptive reuse mall, the Edgewater Public Market. 

 

Dr. Eunhee Kim and Jaeseok Her speaking to Denver Art Society
artist Dana Mooney

Hongseok Choi speaking with Denver Art Society artist Allard Broderick

We have posted prior blogs on the Third Places crime immunity effects and the Denver Art Society. Third Places have a growing role in SafeGrowth to stabilize troubled areas in a way that no policing or target hardening ever could. 

We spent one morning at the Denver Police Academy with academy Director, Lt. Jessie Campion and Commander Jacob Herrera, from the Operational Innovation Bureau. They kindly permitted us a visit to examine police crime prevention strategies and training, including a CPTED report on the historic Denver Union Station following a crime spike in 2021. 

Police Lt. Jesse Campion toured the delegation through the academy and described tools of the trade in the Denver training programs

We ended our third day with a visit to Harmony Village, a cohousing development in Golden, Colorado. The Denver metropolitan region is home to about a dozen cohousing communities, among the largest concentrations of cohousing developments in North America.

The community gardens at the Harmony Village Cohousing in Golden, CO.

At first glance, the neighborhood looks much like any well-designed residential development, with plenty of natural surveillance and territorial controls, attractive homes, pedestrian pathways, gardens, and shared recreation areas. But the difference lies beneath the physical design. 

Residents own their homes but also intentionally share responsibility for governing the community, organizing activities, maintaining common spaces, and building relationships with one another. They learn conflict resolution techniques and organizing skills. In many respects, the neighborhood functions as a small, self-governing community. This illustrates why second-generation CPTED extends far beyond physical design.

The cohousing visit sparked considerable discussion since cohousing combines private home ownership with intentional community building and resident self-governance. For SafeGrowth, that distinction is important. 

Lorraine Neimela touring the delegates through Harmony Village Cohousing

Strong neighborhoods emerge not only from good design, but also from the capacity of residents to organize and collectively solve local problems. This is what too many Condo Associations and Homeowner Associations lack and what digital platforms like Nextdoor do not always achieve. In fact, studies now suggest they often do the opposite by encouraging fear of strangers, amplifying rumors, and replacing face-to-face interaction. 

Our thanks go to Lorraine Niemela from Harmony Village for touring us and the Koreans to view how cohousing, as with SafeGrowth, strengthens relationships first, so residents develop the capacity to solve problems together rather than simply report them.

 

안심

Korea has mastered many of the physical and technological dimensions of CPTED. This site visit was a great opportunity to show how SafeGrowth begins where those strengths leave off. It retains traditional CPTED, but it also asks how neighborhoods continue learning, adapting, and governing themselves long after the design work is finished. 

During the visit I learned that the Korean word 안심 best captures the SafeGrowth philosophy. It loosely translates to peace of mind and feelings of safety. That was the SafeGrowth concept we wanted to convey during the three days of their visit.

We were delighted to welcome our new Korean CPTED colleagues and impressed with their intuitive grasp of crime and safety problems in complex neighborhood systems where everything is interconnected to everything else. We barely had time to introduce the latest possible evolution of CPTED theory into complex adaptive systems. Next time, perhaps!  

As we said our goodbyes, I couldn't help but think of the final scene in the classic 1943 film Casablanca: "…I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." 

I am convinced that is so 

Two Kansas Citys - Design, community, and crime

 

Downtown skyline of Kansas City, Missouri - day and night. Two different cities.
How you look determines what you see.

 

 by Greg Saville

This week we spent time in Kansas City. I watched this city not as a tourist, but as a field observer. One afternoon I photographed the downtown under a calm blue sky. It was interesting, not remarkable. That evening it stood silhouetted by a burning orange sunset. The sky had changed. The city had not. Depending on how you look, you see two different cities. 

When you look at Kansas City and crime research, what do you see? A decades-old program for neighborhood diagnosis called CityScope, a city-wide project on gun violence, a study on alcohol outlets, and another on property values. But overall, Kansas City is most notable for a famous 1974 study on police patrol and more recent crime and mapping research on “Risk Terrain Modelling” (a tool for police crime analysts). 

Apparently, at least since the 1970s, Kansas City is a police research laboratory, not a neighborhood research laboratory. When it comes to social ecology and neighborhood crime prevention, the pickings are slim.

I was interested in the people living in neighborhoods. That too is where crime can be addressed, perhaps not with formal police methods. Social ecology studies show how crime prevention can happen in more informal, and powerful, ways. A walk in two Kansas City neighborhoods was revealing. 

South of Midtown is the Country Club Plaza and Brookside neighborhoods. These are analytical approximations of the three neighborhoods. There are numerous ways to classify neighborhoods, in this case established urban indicators of land use, movement patterns, and activity. 

 

A LOOK AT BROOKSIDE

Brookside is a 1900-1930 streetcar community where clusters of shops and stores lined the sides of the streetcar routes. Brookside has a mixture of architectural styles, with front porches, short setbacks, and a continuous tree canopy overhead (a Third Generation CPTED concept called biophillia).

Brookside neighborhood. A commercial main drag surrounded by residential
 - the streetcar city 

Residences and apartments radiated in grid streets perpendicular to the main street. It is an comfortable neighborhood to stroll with shopping, coffee shops and parks nearby. History describes how design features here evolved organically, with different builders over decades and families rehabbing to their own style. 

The short front yards and gardens not only brought people outside to interact; they helped people get to know familiar faces. 

Straight and angled parking, seating on the sidewalk, planters, different architecture

The eyes here did not simply see the street. They loved their neighborhood (said locals). That did not just ensure eyes on those streets, it ensured eyes that cared about their neighbors. As a result life here unfolds in predictable ways, a slow rhythm that enhances both the sense of community, and the historical memories of community from one generation to the next. 

A LOOK AT COUNTRY CLUB PLAZA

Just north of Brookside was Country Club Plaza (The Plaza). Here, activity and design are deliberate. It was built in 1922 using Spanish Revival architectural styles including apartments, retail, entertainment, eateries, and offices. 

Country Club Plaza neighborhood, built in 1922, has Baroque and Moorish
Revial Architecture, fountains, murals, and Spanish style art

The Plaza is privately-governed, and though it has residential and apartment living, it is often termed the first outdoor shopping plaza in the country. 

It was a beautiful neighborhood with fountains and murals. This managed economic ecosystem was an architectural showpiece and a place where security is controlled. 

I wondered: these are two different kinds of neighborhoods so how did The Plaza and Brookside look from the perspective of our Third Generation CPTED Neighborhood Livability Heirarchy? 

Country Club Plaza, a 15-block area, has a long, and complex, story in urban planning history

Both places work, yet for different reasons. Brookside might be slightly closer to the advanced level on the Livability Hierarchy. Interestingly, there was one category where they differed most: Crime! 

 

CRIME IN EACH NEIGHBORHOOD 

Crime is not simply a function of environmental opportunity. It is a function of how places regulate that opportunity over time. That becomes clear when comparing Brookside and the Country Club Plaza using available crime data. Any clean comparison requires assembling patterns from multiple sources, an imperfect solution but good enough for a quick look. 

Country Club Plaza crime reports, Jan-April 2026.

Brookside crime reports, Jan-Apri 2026

Even with data limitations, the pattern is clear. Brookside’s residential fabric shows lower and more stable incident levels, while The Plaza carries greater and more visible crime pressure. That difference is reinforced by a spike in crime incidents since last year at The Plaza. Management brought in increased private security measures such as lighting, CCTV, and armed security. 

In practical terms, Brookside operates as a self-regulating neighborhood system with continuity of residents and routine use. The Plaza, by contrast, is a high-activity destination that depends on formal control to manage the risks it attracts. Looking at it this way, strong social continuity regulates opportunity more effectively than design and management alone.

 

FLAWS IN CPTED TRADITIONALISM 

None of this suggests either neighborhood is unpleasant. Likely, both sit in the moderate range of the Livability Hierarchy, though Brookside appears stronger.

None of this suggests crime prevention absent. In Kansas City, police and security agencies conduct CPTED surveys, and violence prevention groups promote CPTED toolkits. Unfortunately, these approaches remain rooted in traditional 1st Generation CPTED and offer little more than surface attention to social activity and connection. The kind of social ecology seen in places like Brookside demands far more. It emerges through daily life and the conditions that reinforce it over time.

As Oscar Newman and Jane Jacobs both argued, safety does not arise simply from physical features like walkability or shared amenities. Those matter, however without understanding how community life forms and sustains itself, they are not enough. Adding design features without that understanding does little to create lasting safety.

HOW YOU LOOK AT SAFETY MATTERS

That is why 2nd Generation CPTED and SafeGrowth focus on community development. It is not enough to only rely on checklists of surveillance, access control, maintenance, and territorial reinforcement. This is the flaw of CPTED traditionalism. Real safety requires building the social conditions that sustain it.

Brookside did not become safe by defining property boundaries, installing lights, or eliminating blind corners. It evolved into a safe place through the visibility of vibrant daily life and the development of pro-social activity built into the work and play of residents. Kansas City shows this gap plainly: between the appearance of safety, and the lived reality that sustains it. 

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.

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.”

* * * 

 

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 "nudge" factor in CPTED

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 and now joins our blogging team.

In 2021 a book was published called Nudge: The Final Edition. Prior to that, there are several videos and TedTalks on the topic going back over a decade. Prof. Richard Thaler won the Nobel prize in 2017 for the theory. Nudge has become popular in behavioral economics studies. The concept is simple: Most people want to do the right thing, but instinctively take the path of least resistance. A reminder or nudge can put us all on a path towards doing the right thing. 

For example, after a sporting event or concert, I have often left garbage behind under the seat (like everyone else). My thinking: 'We all know they have cleaners coming in after, so no guilt'. One day after leaving a game, my friend picked up his beer can and plastic cup. I turned back and did the same. We then waited while many others put their recycling in one bin (the beer can) and the plastic cups in another. Simple, yes, but ultimately, we must be the change we want to see in the world. We can’t expect (or guilt) others to join us, but we can nudge them.

WHAT IS A NUDGE?

When translated, the sign in the above photo in Helsingborg, Sweden reads “A hello can save lives”. Mateja Mihinjac from our SafeGrowth team came across this yellow-painted bench in a downtown park. It was part of Helsingborg's "Friendship Benches Project" and it was an attempt to nudge those feeling alone and alienated seeking conversation to sit at the yellow part of the bench to encourage empathetic passersby to have a friendly conversation.  

According to research from the National Center for Suicide Research,“talking is one of the ways to prevent someone from actually attempting suicide”. It is a classic example of "nudge" design to encourage positive behaviour. And Swedish research suggests it is working.

When I hear behavioral economists and behavioral scientists talk about this topic I can’t help my mind wandering over to the CPTED space. Both CPTED and Safegrowth have behavioral elements. Designing a space to nudge others into doing what is best for the environment around them, not what is the most immediate personal win. Spaces to encourage gathering and community building will be activated by someone and followed by others to create a critical mass.

Research suggests that certain colours at night might trigger less violent behaviour

For example, an experiment was described during a TedTalk where a speaker put up signs that said, “Your mother doesn’t work here, clean up your own mess”. The result was a mess left everywhere. 

A successful example was putting three garbage receptacles on a beach in a high visibility area with different colours and signs above with examples of what to put in each colour bag. The latter was FAR more successful. A Nudge (subtle) is greater than an order or ultimatum. It gives the individual the agency to make their own decision to do the right thing. Do you ever hear anyone boast that they did the right thing because a sign told them? Rather do you hear “I always do that”? It can become a big part of someone’s personal brand or narrative. 

Prior SafeGrowth blogs have described the subtle impact of
coloured lighting and crime

HOW DO YOU NUDGE A SPACE? 

Nudging and CPTED take time to change people’s behavior and for most people, it will work. We all need to be patient to see the results over time. In Safegrowth the goal is stated on the website “If Neighborhoods had the skills, tools, and resources to remove, wherever possible, the motives and opportunity for crime.” A lofty goal, but certainly worth the time it takes to understand who and what assets your community has and what assets are needed to accomplish this.

One might think that a survey asking behavioural questions is a good idea, but the problem goes back to the YouTube nudge example above. Putting instructional signs up sounds like a good idea. People would likely answer 'put up a sign' in response to irresponsible behavior. That notion comes from the premise that we all want to do the right thing, but when we see others not do the right thing, we all follow. 

The Thaler and Suntein book "Nudge" revolutionized
how urban designers think about space

Therefore, it is not simply asking the question but instead, it is understanding what behavior needs a nudge. How often have you heard someone explaining bad behaviour by saying, "others do it, so why can’t I?" In criminology, this is known as the techniques of neutralization.

It is not enough to hope for good intentions. In SafeGrowth and in intelligent CPTED, when we look at designing spaces and activating spaces to create community, we always must keep in mind human behavior. For people to comply, they might need a little nudge or two.

 

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 book chapter from Making Cities Work 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 authors of the urban innovation chapter wrote about 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 their 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! 

Propaganda, science, crime prevention - A New Year's Resolution

Police and prevention go together. Good crime prevention is based on evidence, not popular beliefs

by Gregory Saville

“No one marches on Washington because of a pie chart!” I heard a politician say that years ago during a campaign. So why does anyone march on Washington, or wherever? Many people march for legitimate reasons. Others don’t. Evidence informs some. Others just believe what they want.

Incredulous as it seems – despite the absurdity of magic pills – some people end up believing populist snake oil when confronted with social unrest, economic strife, or political periods of turbulence. It’s the same in crime prevention. Despite evidence that many prevention methods cut crime, some choose to believe otherwise. 

We need an objective system that depends on evidence and rational decision-making. 

Crime prevention has been a police mandate since 1829.
A 1931 family photo of Police Constable Tom Hopkin - my grandfather

WHAT WORKS?

I remember reading one of the first evaluations of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design in the 1970s – an elegant, pre-test/post-test research design with tons of data over several years. It examined problems like the maturation effect (how the passage of time taints a strategy) and selection bias (failing to collect random samples). Evaluators examined problems that researchers seldom examine even today, like compensatory equalization, (when a city implements other programs that affect the results). It was state-of-the-art in social science evaluation.

It was a demonstration project called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design: Final Report on Residential Demonstration, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

That study, and a series of others that followed, were the most exacting scientific studies of CPTED of such size, scope, and quality. They are unrivaled, even today. They revealed the positive results from CPTED of that era. They showed how CPTED was successful when it was holistic and participative with the community. They also showed that CPTED was complex. 

What happened? Researchers criticized CPTED as too complex. They claimed it was too difficult to parse out the effect of specific strategies and to control one prevention effect from another. They complained it was too hard to isolate the role of the community from the police and the prevention practitioners. 

You cannot please everyone! Nor, in science, should you. The point is not to please people and appease their feelings. The point of science is to learn from mistakes and move closer to truth.

Since then, hundreds of CPTED studies have shown positive prevention results. The most recent claimed: “Reviews of collections of CPTED case studies have in general indicated CPTED interventions typically reduce crime.” 

Einstein's prediction about the bending of light. Many felt he was nuts - it offended their belief about the world. Scientific experimentation proved them wrong
- photo Creative Commons

BELIEF VERSUS TRUTH

We still lack the scientific rigor to find any “ultimate” truths. That doesn’t mean we cannot find some relative truths. Good scientists say this all the time. Yet, if such flaws exist in the physical sciences, imagine the ailments afflicting social science. 

In one review, a City Journal critic of criminological statistics found that “A detailed review of every regression model published between 1968 and 2005 in Criminology, a leading peer-reviewed journal, demonstrated that these models consistently failed to explain 80 to 90 percent of the variation in crime.”

I recently read an evaluation in Sweden that was so flawed, it read like propaganda. It failed to cite any prior evaluation research, provided no methodology, and quantified nothing. CPTED evaluations from 40 years ago put it to shame. Clearly, they have learned zero.

How can we build a library of evidence about effective crime prevention when even social scientists cannot figure out how to do proper science? 

Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment. One of the earliest cons in the Old West
- photo Creative Commons 

SNAKE OIL SALES 

If it is a choice between the snake oil propaganda of populist politicians (the “elites” are the problem; let’s go back to the old days), or an objective system that depends on evidence and rational decision-making, I doubt any fair-minded, democracy-loving, intelligent person, would choose the former.

There is no way to know for certain in social science how much more research is necessary. We also do not know whether more evidence, no matter how conclusive, will convince policy-makers to make rational crime policy. Regardless, none of that should dissuade the use of good research and the collection of decent evidence.

As we enter the New Year, I say we should carry on the difficult task of refining crime prevention methods, regardless of sham critics. We must remain vigilant against populist propaganda. We should continue to build, and learn from, libraries of success and failure. 

We may not know how to convince the political populists, but without efforts to learn from science, we will forever be in the clutches of one snake oil salesman or another. And, as we know from the history of violence in the 20th Century, that never ends well.