SAFEGROWTH®

SAFEGROWTH® BLOG

regular contributors
GREGORY SAVILLE · TARAH HODGKINSON · MATEJA MIHINJAC
SUBSCRIBE TO RECEIVE BLOG UPDATES DIRECTLY IN YOUR INBOX
  • HOME
  • WHO WE ARE
    • SAFEGROWTH NETWORK
    • SAFEGROWTH MOVEMENT
    • FRIENDS OF SAFEGROWTH
    • LIKEMINDED
  • WHAT WE DO
    • SAFEGROWTH & LIVABILITY ACADEMY TRAINING
    • TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE & CRIME PREVENTION
    • CONSULTING & ADVISING
    • SUMMITS & SEARCH CONFERENCES
  • ABOUT SAFEGROWTH
    • SafeGrowth History
    • Method & Philosophy
    • SafeGrowth Theory
    • What makes great neighborhoods
  • RESOURCES
    • TED-Ed tutorials >
      • SafeGrowth - Crime & the 21st Century City
      • Vision-Based Asset Mapping
    • SafeGrowth language
  • BOOK
  • BLOG
  • PODCAST
  • TOOLKIT (PASSWORD ACCESS)
    • Notes for SafeGrowth teams >
      • CINCINNATI, OHIO
      • PORTLAND, OREGON
      • ARVADA, COLORADO
    • RISK ASSESSMENT FOR NEIGHBORHOODS >
      • RA Categories-Neighborhoods
      • 5 Steps & Report guidance >
        • Report structure
        • Sample reports
      • Readings for download
      • Glossary
    • RISK ASSESSMENT FOR REGULATORS >
      • RA Categories-Regulators

31/7/2017

PURGE THE SCOURGE OF BLANK WALLS

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Downtown telecom company bricks in windows and leaves us with a blank wall

by Greg Saville

Walking downtown a few days ago I came across a large telecommunications center that dominated an entire city block with blank walls. It is a sight that appears with increasing regularity in cities everywhere. The telecoms want to keep their innards secure, but they choose to locate downtown.

When meeting someone new we generally say hello, shake hands, and exchange pleasantries. The pleasantries are often meaningless. “Nice to meet you”! Perhaps. Perhaps, not.

But it is polite to greet someone well. It sets a tone for a civil relationship. There are consequences if you present an obnoxious face in public, or worse if you ignore them. It makes you look like a rube. You may think laws keep chaos at bay, but that is a legal conceit. In fact, sociologists, anthropologists, and well-trained criminologists will tell you it is everyday civil behavior - norms - that keep us civil and safe.
Picture
Shopping malls are the worst blank wall offenders

​HOW TO ADDRESS THE STREET

It is no different for architecture in public places, especially downtown streets. Walking to downtown shops, waiting at bus stops, or simply enjoying a stroll are activities that make places hospitable and civil and mitigate uncivil behavior. We are embraced, or assailed, by how buildings address the street with their architecture. If they ignore the street with blank walls, they assault us. If they address the street in a civil way, they welcome us.

This is called streetscaping. Architects have many tools to do this well; building massing, permeable designs, paying attention to the pedestrian experience. Some call it placemaking. New York blogger Andrew Manshell has a great blog on this topic.
Picture
Community owned food co-op gets it right

​Streetscaping does not mean addressing the street with blank walls, walls that ignore the street and the people on it. Blank walls on public streets are obnoxious, like the obnoxious rube. They tell us we don’t matter. Blank wall owners might benefit from our public utilities, public streets, and our fire, police and other services, but they could not care less how they address us on our streets. So their massive blank walls make our streets inhospitable... so what!

Sound familiar? That is the behavior of the sociopath. No consequence!
Picture
Green walls are in

DESIGN SOCIOPATHY

Blank walls are the architectual version of design sociopathy.

Back in the 1980s, William Whyte wrote about the poisonous effect that large blank walls had on city life. Boring convention centers, government buildings, megastructures, and parking garages with large blank walls on public streets all fell under his wrath. But in City: Rediscovering the Center it was telephone companies that offended most, especially a 55-storey blank wall in New York. Since then it seems the telecoms have not changed.

Sociopathic blank walls kill sidewalks and suck the energy out of urban life.

If there is anything contemporary planners (and CPTED practitioners) must do it is to kill blank walls in downtown architecture. There are many ways that can be done creatively - green walls, murals, tasteful windows placement.

We need to purge the scourge of architecture’s sociopath.
Picture
Creative paint schemes are an easy fix to blandness

Share

0 Comments

25/7/2017

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH? PERHAPS NOT!

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture

by Tarah Hodgkinson

When you ask people to provide an example of crime prevention, the first program they mention is Neighbourhood Watch (or Block Watch). This is not surprising considering that for 45 years it has been implemented extensively. Police departments offer toolkits for residents and many neighbourhoods sport signs that say “Block Watch Community – All suspicious behaviours will be reported to the police.” 

Neighbourhood Watch originated in Seattle in 1972 when the Law and Justice Planning Office conducted a survey and found that residents were most concerned about burglary. They created a program to:

  • Train residents in target hardening techniques
  • Encourage willing residents to share information about their schedules 
  • Create a network of residents to watch after each other's houses, and
  • Report suspicious behaviour to each other and the local police. 

The program produced massive declines in burglary rates (48-61%). Thus, Neighbourhood Watch was deemed an exemplary project and, backed by the National Crime Prevention Council and most police departments, it took off across North America.
Picture
The ubiquitous Neighbourhood Watch sign. Are residents doing anything?

Some positive results continue today. For example, British research shows it cuts burglary in UK neighbourhoods by 16% to 26%.

However, Neighbourhood Watch has been subject to considerable criticism. Research demonstrated that expansions of the program in different cities produce positive results only in middle-class neighbourhoods that already had strong social cohesion. Other studies found that it tended to have negative consequences, including increasing fear of crime.


WHAT WENT WRONG?

So what happened to this exemplary project?

Current versions of Neighbourhood Watch have missed the mark in addressing crime problems and mobilizing residents to address them. Some accounts claim they do not encourage neighbours to organize around crime issues that they care about.

Instead, today’s programs are a shadow of what they once were; they play lip service to a once well-designed program by posting signs and handing out flyers. In most case, residents call their local police service to install signs and give residents information on how to secure their homes or notice suspicious behaviour. Unfortunately, they miss the point regarding what contributed to the success of the original program – people!


THE MISSING INGREDIENT

This is in direct opposition to the action research methodology that underpins SafeGrowth - to address relevant crime issues with local residents, not to or for them. When people and context are removed from the equation, all we are left with is a feel-good program.

We don’t need signs, flyers and more door locks. We need engaged neighbourhoods where police and residents work together on crime issues that matter most and then co-create lasting solutions. That is how we move forward.

Share

0 Comments

16/7/2017

AEROTROPOLIS - FUTURE CITY TODAY?

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Creative lighting at the Detroit airport pedestrian tunnel

​by Greg Saville

A thought occurred as I pondered our Chicago SafeGrowth training and the upcoming presentations about work in 4 different cities. SafeGrowth teams are tackling crime and disorder at vacant land sites, a small open park along a heavily trafficked roadway, and a historic public square.

These are all cases where transport routes and locations intersect revealing flaws in local places and the social life of urban spaces. Problems like this point to geography.

The study of geography spans medical geography (epidemiology) and climatology to social geography and urban planning. My undergrad studies included all of those, but one of the most interesting was transport geography.
Picture
Vancouver International Airport - transport hub with cultural flavor - photo Flights nation

​GEOGRAPHY SHOWS THE WAY

There are no cities without transport geography. Moving people and goods requires organizing our cities and regions in efficient and ecologically sound ways - walkways, trails, roads, bike paths, rail, and airports. Locating neighborhoods, shops and businesses near, or far from, transport routes is the path to urban profit or debt. And poor transport geographies create niches for crime and fear.

Environmental criminology has for years attempted to use the mobility of people as a predictor for crime patterns (with mixed results). CPTED uses movement predictors of people to prevent high-risk paths and crime hotspots. Transport geography is a big deal. That led me to this; Is the modern hub airport a future city?
Picture
Detroit's indoor people-mover train

​HUB AIRPORTS AS FUTURE CITIES? 

John Kasarda’s Aerotropolis claims the modern airport hub has evolved into a new urban form called Airport Cities. He means the area in and around the airport. Transport Geography journals describe hub-airports as a new kind of city.

I wondered, are airports, not just parts of larger metro areas but distinct cities unto themselves? If so, what lessons do they offer our neighborhood safety efforts?

Airports would not exist but for the populations of nearby urban places. Still, I practically live in airports nowadays and I am struck by the layers of complexity in them. They have all forms of urban design - restaurants, health food markets, resting places, hotels, medical facilities, lounging areas, physical fitness areas and spiritual centers for reflection. They have their own transport systems ranging from small trains, buses, moving sidewalks, and shuttles. In other words - a city!
Picture
Moving people in creative ways

​True, you cannot own property in airports and you cannot actually live in them. And the only reason to go there is to go somewhere else. Yet, as I look at them, they offer fascinating lessons - good and bad - we might consider in planning safer places.


THEY ARE SAFE

First, once you get inside them, modern hub airports are safe. They have CCTV surveillance, electronic access controls, police, and security screening at the entrances. Shootings are rare. Consider the few recent cases like when a crazed gunman shot up LAX or a Fort Lauderdale shooter attacked passengers at the bag claim. All those occurred outside security.

The fact is once you are inside security, shooting risks plummet to near zero. There might be insane people who assault others or bar fights from drunk travelers, but these are quickly squashed by security and police. In modern hub airports you are much safer than most American cities. Guns simply don’t often make it into airports. Gun control, it turns out, works incredibly well! Airports teach us that.
Picture
Mother and child - Palm tree arboretum in Long Beach Airport, California

​THEY ARE BIG

They are HUGE! Concourse B in Denver is a half mile (1 km) long. Detroit is a mile (1.6 km). The Dubai International Airport is the world’s second largest at over 18,000,000 sq ft, nine times bigger than York’s Grand Central Station. That’s big! It means airports must figure how to transport people quickly and safely.

Their solutions include moving sidewalks, pod-cars, light rail trains, and people-movers (short distance, mini-wheeled trains cheaper than light rail). And they are fast. I travel through long airports quicker than I can walk across a suburban 8-lane intersection at rush hour. Airports can teach us something about urban mobility.


THEY HAVE ART
Picture
Denver International Airport murals

​Then there is the art. Airports have been installing murals, paintings, art galleries, music performances, and other displays of local culture. Airports might be for movement, but they realize the importance of de-sterilizing bland places and blank walls with art. Place-making in airports is alive. We should take heed.

In the 1980 sci-fi book Oath of Fealty, the future Los Angeles contains a self-contained mini-city called Todos Santos, a secure arcology built apart from the crime-infested dystopian suburbs of Greater L.A. Todos Santos reads like a modern hub airport.

Oath of Fealty predicted the building of the L.A. subway. Has it also predicted the future of cities based on hub airports? As futurist William Gibson once wrote, the future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.
Picture
Paleo exhibit attracts interest in Chicago

Share

0 Comments

6/7/2017

CPTED EVENT OF THE YEAR - THE 2017 ICA CONFERNCE

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
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 many ways a coming home for CPTED. While the original ideas for CPTED grew from books by Jane Jacobs and Oscar Newman in  New York, it was actually Chicago in 1920s where America's first 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 on August 7 and 8. CPTED practitioners will meet 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.
Picture
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!

Share

0 Comments
Details
    SUBSCRIBE TO RECEIVE BLOG UPDATES DIRECTLY IN YOUR INBOX

    REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS

    GREGORY SAVILLE
    TARAH HODGKINSON
    MATEJA MIHINJAC

    CATEGORIES

    All
    15-minute City
    4S
    AI
    Alcohol
    Alternative Development
    Art
    Artificial Intelligence
    Biophilia
    Black Lives Matter
    Bladerunner
    Bus Stops
    CCTV
    Change Agent
    Civility
    Collaboration
    Community Building
    Community Empowerment
    Community Engagement
    Community Safety
    Connectivity
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    CPTED
    Creativity
    Crime Analysis
    Crime Displacement
    Crime Disruptors
    Crime Opportunity
    Crime Rates
    Crime Severity Index
    Criminology
    Culture
    Cure Violence
    Defensible Space
    Design Out Crime
    Diversity
    Downtown
    Emotional Intelligence
    Entertainment Districts
    Environmental Criminology
    Ethics
    Evidence-based
    Eyes On The Street
    Fake News
    Fear Of Crime
    Feminism
    Food Access
    Future Cities
    Global Warming
    Governance
    Graffiti
    Green Spaces
    H22
    HACE
    Harmscapes
    Health
    Helsingborg
    Homelessness
    Housing
    Human Scale Design
    ICA
    Immigration
    Inclusiveness
    Indigenous
    International CPTED Association
    Laneway
    Latin America
    Law
    Law Enforcement
    Lighting
    LISC
    Livability
    Livability Academy
    Local Capacity
    Local Democracy
    Local Trust
    Location Quotient
    Loneliness
    Lovability
    Mental Health
    Motivation
    Neighborhood
    Neighborhood Asset
    Neighborhood Governance
    Neighborhood Hubs
    Neighborhood Livability Hierarchy
    Neighborhood Transformation
    NIMBY
    Operation Ceasefire
    Partnerships
    PBL
    Philadelphia
    Placemaking
    Policing
    Politics
    Populism
    Predictive Policing
    Problem-based Learning
    Professionalization
    Protests
    Public Health
    Quality Of Life
    Restorative Justice
    Rural Crime
    SafeGrowth
    Safety Audits
    San Romanoway
    Science
    Second Generation CPTED
    Security
    Self-governance
    Sitability
    Situational Crime Prevention
    Smart City
    Smart Growth
    Social Cohesion
    Social Distancing
    Social Ecology
    Social Isolation
    Social Justice
    Social Unrest
    Space Activation
    Street Walkability
    Suburbs
    Successful Places
    Surveillance
    Sustainability
    Sweden
    Target Hardening
    Technology
    Theory
    Third Generation CPTED
    Third Places
    Transportation
    Urban Decline
    Urbanism
    Urban Planning
    Violence
    Youth


    ARCHIVES

    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    March 2009
    February 2009


CONTACT

SafeGrowth.Office@gmail.com

SafeGrowth.org

AlterNation.ca

Picture

SafeGrowth® 2007-2022
All rights reserved.

© A registered product of AlterNation LLC

SafeGrowth® is a philosophy and theory of neighborhood safety planning for 21st Century.

​SafeGrowth® is available all over the world for creating new relationships between city government and residents. Any city can adopt this philosophy thereby creating empowered neighborhoods resistant to crime with residents engaged in planning their own future.


  • HOME
  • WHO WE ARE
    • SAFEGROWTH NETWORK
    • SAFEGROWTH MOVEMENT
    • FRIENDS OF SAFEGROWTH
    • LIKEMINDED
  • WHAT WE DO
    • SAFEGROWTH & LIVABILITY ACADEMY TRAINING
    • TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE & CRIME PREVENTION
    • CONSULTING & ADVISING
    • SUMMITS & SEARCH CONFERENCES
  • ABOUT SAFEGROWTH
    • SafeGrowth History
    • Method & Philosophy
    • SafeGrowth Theory
    • What makes great neighborhoods
  • RESOURCES
    • TED-Ed tutorials >
      • SafeGrowth - Crime & the 21st Century City
      • Vision-Based Asset Mapping
    • SafeGrowth language
  • BOOK
  • BLOG
  • PODCAST
  • TOOLKIT (PASSWORD ACCESS)
    • Notes for SafeGrowth teams >
      • CINCINNATI, OHIO
      • PORTLAND, OREGON
      • ARVADA, COLORADO
    • RISK ASSESSMENT FOR NEIGHBORHOODS >
      • RA Categories-Neighborhoods
      • 5 Steps & Report guidance >
        • Report structure
        • Sample reports
      • Readings for download
      • Glossary
    • RISK ASSESSMENT FOR REGULATORS >
      • RA Categories-Regulators