Jigsaw puzzles and walkable streets

Louisville has much to offer: lower crime rates, the Kentucky Derby, more Victorian homes in one area than elsewhere in the country, parks designed by Frederick Olmstead, ballet, opera, theatre, and large convention centers. None of those things, per se, typically produces a walkable neighborhood street culture. But they are nice.

Lately I’m thinking more about city streets and jigsaw puzzles. Consider downtown Louisville where I walked this week. There are wide expanses of cement and asphalt. One-way downtown streets, empty during evenings, and long distances between stores make downtown walking in some parts tedious and pointless. No different than what I saw in Houston and San Antonio and most other(but not all) large North American cities. The indigent ask me for coin. A homeless woman pushes over street furniture – perhaps a statement of her boredom with poverty, her frustration with it, or just being drunk! Jane Jacobs would hate this piece of the Louisville puzzle.

I wonder: Shouldn't we expect more from downtown street life?

Later I am shown an entirely different piece. The fabulous Bardstown Road in the Highlands area is filled with art galleries, street cafes, restaurants of all ilk, and a variety of folks safely intermingling from all walks, incomes, and peculiarities. It’s a little Bohemia both fascinating and tasty. This is street life with diversity and energy. Jane Jacobs would love this.

A few days later I find my own underground jewel snaking off a boring and empty street into a back courtyard café. The Derby City Exresso bar is the kind of place where edge politics thrives. The bar reeks of alternative culture and proves cultural depth isn’t obsolete. If it were the 50s, Kerouac and the beats might have submerged here with their jazz poetry. Today’s version offers wall labels that advertise Propaganda Nite, Postmodern Magic, and warn us, This Machines Kills Fascists. Another asks, What now?

Three Louisville pieces emblematic of disjointed neighborhoods in cities everywhere. The latter two pieces seem a naturally evolving antidote to the former. This is the puzzle of our contemporary downtown street life or, in too many cases, lack thereof.

What now indeed?



I discovered there are some exciting things happening here! The Louisville police department has been gradually implementing the most advanced police training method in the country - Problem Based Learning. As I mentioned last blog, PBL supports the COPS strategy. COPS is one precursor to more expansive SafeGrowth strategies and safer neighborhood design.

Also, there is visionary new leadership at the University of Louisville's NCPI – the National Crime Prevention Institute. Because 1st Generation Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design pervades cities throughout the world, we forget that in the early 1970s (shortly after the publication of Newman’s Defensible Space and Jeffery’s CPTED) NCPI was the original birthplace of CPTED training. Reinvigorated learning opportunities at NCPI hold some interesting possibilities for safer neighborhoods.

Perhaps that’s one way we can learn to do neighborhoods right? Updated learning may yet provide the most important piece linking the safer streets puzzle.

The Great American Crime Decline?

Toronto or...
New York...Who's got crime?

Whenever the political prophets talk crime and peddle propaganda to solve it on their nightly TV holler-fests, I feel parched for truth on a media so devoid of it. As a criminologist I know what passes for truth about crime on TV is but a mirage.

Then I heard some truth about the mystifying urban crime declines of the 1990s. The words came from Professor Franklin E. Zimring whom I briefly met at an Alberta crime prevention conference last year.

If you have never read the work of Zimring, do so! Read his book The Great American Crime Decline. Zimring is meticulous showing how the crime declines throughout the 1990s were not only sustained and real; they were unprecedented in the 20th Century. click for Zimring's book

Previously on this blog I have described academic research called ROTO: Research-On-The-Obvious. read the ROTO entry

Zimring’s research is not ROTO. It is methodical, cautious and does not overstate.

His last chapter talks about lessons learned from the decline years. With the recession upon us and rates inching upwards, perhaps it is time to revisit his conclusions? Crime Decline conclusions

As with many truths, solutions are not simple. Zimring says no single cause can be attributed to the crime declines, not even the criminal justice system fixes - more cops, more 3 strikes laws, and more prisons. He concludes American crime studies missed the boat. They failed to look outside the borders. Hence they missed the fact that US declines almost perfectly echo those in Canada where there were no US-style fixes – no more cops, no more prisons, and no 3 strikes laws! Yet the declines happened anyway.

While there is no single cause of the good news, there are probably multiple causes of it. According to Zimring the glad tidings for crime control start with an improving economy and reductions in the number of young males in the so-called “crime-prone years” (15-29). Coinciding with these trends (though Zimring glosses over this) I would add police practices in both countries shifted toward the COPS philosophy: community-based, problem-oriented policing.

COPS emphasizes problem-solving crime hotspots in partnership with residents. Studies report success with COPS projects, the most notable being the Goldstein Problem-Solving Awards and the annual Problem-Oriented Policing Conference. visit POP Center website

Do we get a simple bottom line? Not by Zimring standards. But there are some truths to remember. Here are three:
1) Professional observers of crime completely missed prophesizing the 1990s declines. They simply didn’t know it was coming.
2) Crime theorists still try to convince us their explanations work, when Zimring shows us they don’t.
3) Political and media pundits continue to pontificate, convincing me to turn off night-time TV.

It suggests, at least to me, that we cannot rely on politicians and experts to solve our crime problems for us – they simply don’t know what to do.

It suggests that crime is not an inevitable factor in any neighborhood or at any time. Crime does not require massive changes to our social structure to reduce it. It suggests we don’t yet know enough about social policy to know what government policy works best to reduce crime.

Mostly it suggests we need to go with what we know works: small scale, neighborhood efforts where we see actual improvements; COPS style policing in collaborations with residents; working within neighborhoods and with enlightened residents who collaborate with knowledgeable service providers.

The media and the tip of the iceberg

Not long ago Winnipeg, Canada was listed by a national magazine as one of the highest crime cities in the country, especially car theft. read MacLean's Magazine article

I've been many times to Winnipeg and I'm always amazed how a place can feel so very different than the what the media and the stats tell us.

As we've seen so many times in this blog, stats tell only a very small part of the picture. Proof: One of my talented SafeGrowth colleagues in Winnipeg, Brody Grusko, is launching some exciting new work in that city. He posted a SafeGrowth entry in their city website with some feedback. Looks like there are excellent opportunities to expand neighbourhood governance and city repair projects.

Brody's blog entry

I especially thought his chart was one of the more interesting diagrams I have seen for describing the SafeGrowth methodology.


Brody is coordinator of the Winnipeg Committee for Safety. It's a pretty dynamic group. They are worth keeping an eye on. If you haven't seen their website, check it out.
Winnipeg Committee for Safety site

Safety with a Potluck - Transforming Space into Place

Portland's Intersection Repair program

Imagine: When the fog of traffic congestion clogs our streets (and our minds), imagine a safe place near your home with quiet beauty and solace. Imagine neighbors putting out daily coffee and tea for passers-by in mini-street cafes. Imagine bulletin-boards, cobblestones and artistic murals, flowers and gardens on your street. Imagine it can all start with a potluck.

I recently spent time exploring Portland, Oregon. Some equate Portland with rain and overcast winters. But other records matter more - Portland's outdoor street life for example. Portland is one of the world's greenest cities, the fittest and most eco-friendly city in the US, the best US city for biking to work, renown for land use planning and light rail, and a top ten city for architecture and design.

Portland's not perfect. While it has about the same ethnic and income mix as cities of similar size, it does have the country's second highest unemployment rate. It has problems with car thefts and burglary. Yet of the 75 largest cities, Portland's murder rate is consistently in the bottom 10 and robbery in the bottom 20. It has one of the lowest violent crime rates of any city in the country.

One wonders about the obvious; Do the things that make it vibrant account for the things that make it safe? Residents describe it as one of the safest places in the country with the highest high quality of life.

Why?

Portland's neighborhoods are alive. Interest in civic affairs is alive. In the neighborhoods (away from the clogged Interstate) cars seem secondary, people and bikes first.
Nowhere is this exemplified better than with Portland's City Repair movement, now in dozens of cities across the country.

Pioneered a decade ago, innovator and architect Mark Lakeman is a leading proponent. He told me local residents decide for themselves what they want their streets to look like and how their intersections should function. Some want community interaction or seasonal celebrations. Others want slower traffic or beautiful public art.

City Repair creates artistic and ecologically-oriented placemaking through neighborhood projects. They began by tackling the urban grid. They convert residential street intersections into public squares. They use paint, plants, and permaculture. They construct non-toxic solutions from the local environment. They combine public art with benches, lampposts, play areas for kids, and gardens alongside public streets. It is remarkable to see this in person.

If you can, go there and see for yourself. Nowhere have I seen intersections transformed so creatively by local action.

This is citizen government and a positive example of direct action.When we talk of placemaking in SafeGrowth, City Repair is exemplary. It yields great promise and optimism.

People are drawn to see beautiful art or sculptures in formerly boring grid intersections throughout the city. I watched cars slow to safer speeds where there were no stop signs. Well designed street art is a natural traffic calmer.

Resident-designed intersections in Portland - eventually the city came on board

I heard of doomsday pundits who said it was impossible (until it was done by others). I heard of traffic engineers predicting chicken-little (then shown how to build creative and functional intersections).

Mark says, we are engaging people where they live and they are building new relationships. They are creating physical artifacts that encourage them to gather after the fact. They see these artifacts and they interrelate with them and the stories broaden and deepen.

That is placemaking at it's best.

Check it out.

Give me a $1,184 inch...and I'll take me a mile

I recently attended a SafeGrowth training with some engaged folks in Houston, Texas. Groups from the community, police, and community development organizations spent time learning basic SafeGrowth tactics and choosing a local area to see how they work in real life.

(SIDE NOTE: Houston participants: Your June 30 assignment is on the link Risk Assessment Descriptions at the right side of this page...don't forget ;-)

Prior to the workshop I spent time visiting the various areas in the city. I was impressed by the newly gentrified mid-town area with walkable streets and restaurants. I was also impressed by the world-famous NASA Houston Space Center. But I was also struck by the profusion of interstate highways, cement overpasses and one-way streets downtown. Above all else, this is a car city.

I looked into the Houston car world. In the report Houston Freeways: A 5 Year Retrospective I learned some interesting facts.read Freeway Report

* The Texas department of transportation for the Houston area spends hundreds of millions to build and maintain the freeway system (to be fair, I doubt it is any different than other cities like Los Angeles).

* The Katy Freeway project alone, launched in 2006 after much delay, had a projected cost of $2.67 Billion (yes, that is billion with a "B").

* The downtown connector project linking the Hardy Toll road into downtown Houston is estimated at $75 million per mile. That's $14,204 per foot or $1,184 per inch.


I don't mean to pick on the transportation planners (ok, maybe just a bit). After all, there is a light rail line with some fabulously designed stations in the downtown. Some of the streetscaping, waterfeatures, and modern trains were among the most attractive anywhere.

But with all the freeways and overpasses I wondered about something that plagues every city - the homeless!

Studies I found suggested there were between 14,000 and 30,000 homeless people in Houston (depending on what study you read). There were homeless people on practically every street I walked downtown. True, they are certainly not as prolific in the Houston financial or theatre district as they are in other cities. But I'm told that is because they have moved under the same freeway overpasses on which so much money is invested.

I'm certain there are social services in Houston for those homeless as there are in every city. And we all know the causes of homelessness are complex and abundant - lack of affordable housing, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, substance abuse, domestic and sexual violence, family problems are a few. They are not easy to solve in Houston or anywhere.

But is it unreasonable to at least ask a basic question:

If every highway inch gets $1,184, what does it cost to house, feed, and provide social, emotional, and job related training to a homeless person?

Waking up in the 21st Century: The San Romanoway Story

One version of crime prevention is to hunt around for the latest program and try it out. Like a teen shopping for clothes, popular fashion dictates choice. Cost comes second. Many of the prevention programs we see today result from the most recent academic or policy fashion. They are impervious to cost and, to stretch the metaphor, they are silent on effectiveness.

Too many crime prevention programs are adopted as though one size fits all. They are effective or ineffective depending on where, on what, and how they are applied. Few have actually been tested for effectiveness with any scientific rigor.

It is like medicine that waits for symptoms and then looks for specific treatments. The more sophisticated doctor is more holistic, working in partnership with the patient to build overall health and wellness, rather than waiting for symptoms to arise.

SafeGrowth is such an approach in crime prevention. It is a 21st Century holistic form of collaborative community development. SafeGrowth works directly with residents, transferring skills and knowledge to the place they are most needed, within troubled neighbourhoods. It also applies to existing safe neighbourhoods looking to innoculate their community from disorder and delinquency.

Example: A large cluster of high rise apartment buildings - the San Romanoway project - becomes the subject of a multi-year program to address crime and disorder. Housing 4,000 residents, many of whom are new immigrants and single parents, the project has a history of problems with crime. They are surrounded by gangs, drugs and poverty of the notorious Jane/Finch suburbs in north Toronto. For decades conditions for the 60,000 residents in Jane/Finch worsen and grow into one of Canada's highest crime communities.

From 2000 to 2001 a research team led by Ross McLeod from Intelligarde and myself from AlterNation conducted research and crafted a SafeGrowth neighbourhood redevelopment plan. From 2001 to 2009 the Greenwin Property Management group led by Kevin Green, along with local residents formed the San Romanoway Revitalization Association, led by director Stephnie Payne. They immediately began implementing tailored strategies they selected for themselves. Community gardens, parenting classes, area cleanups, better lighting, improved management practices, social and recreational programs for kids, and others began the process. Fundraising was done locally and government, private corporations, and philanthropic groups all contributed.

Most recently San Romanoway has added new tennis courts and tennis camps from Tennis Canada, and a new cineplex movie theatre donated by the Cineplex Corporation within the apartment project - the first of its kind in Canada. They also have opened a new recording studio in which local kids create their own rap songs for public sale.

Crime at San Romanoway has plummeted, more residents are engaged in community life, and fear has decreased. While conditions in the wider Jane-Finch area are unchanged, San Romanoway shows us how the SafeGrowth model for neighbourhood building represents the future of 21st Century crime prevention.

The full SafeGrowth story will be reported this fall in a special issue of the Built Environment journal: Security versus Safety: A New Look.

the Built Environment journal website