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 >
      • PORTLAND - TriMet (2022)
    • 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

31/10/2011

THE INTERRUPTERS

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Gary Slutkin is another prevention kid with a great program on the block. Despite Newsweek's yellow journalism alleging conflicts between David Kennedy's and Gary Slutkin's different anti-violence programs (and their eviscerating response), they both have the same goal and similar successes. You say tomato, I say tomahto.

Recall Kennedy uses the justice system, targets high risk populations, collects cases on offenders, and uses the threat of sanctions to intervene.

Slutkin takes the public health approach. He blocks violent outbreaks by targeting high risk offenders and uses community "interrupters". Interrupters are savvy street workers who convince family and friends to help offenders see violence is in no one's best interest. 

A new award winning film is out called The Interrupters. It describes a year in the life of violence in Chicago. It's a fascinating documentary about Slutkin's program.

I hope the film - and the program - does well. 

Still…getting the right program is only half the battle. Staying on point is the other.

Kennedy's CeaseFire anti-violence program cut Boston homicides in half in the 1990s - the Boston Miracle. Now he says they moved away from CeaseFire and crime is on the rise. Streetworker unionization, role change and budget cuts decimated a once proud program.

Oakland too lost the plot. Courts issued gang injunctions without CeaseFire coordination. Then "funds from the city to CeaseFire were interrupted when the number of Oakland police dropped below levels required by the ballot measure."

When will officials learn to keep political fingers off things that actually work in the hood? When will we, the neighborhood dwelling public, wise-up and slap their fingers for it?

Share

0 Comments

25/10/2011

BACK FROM THE BRINK

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Senior's walking toward - and choosing - their own future

SAFEGROWTH DEFINED: Crime prevention and community building is best achieved within the neighborhood by harnessing the creative energy of neighborhood change agents and functional groups. 

I'm on a roll with good news stories lately. Here's another one demonstrating the above.

Hurricane Katrina hammered it. Fifteen to 20 murders annually vexed it. Even homegrown rapper L'il Wayne once sang "Hollygrove ain't no muthaf**kin melrose". 

No longer.

Hollygrove in New Orleans is born again. Not in the religious sense…though, maybe. SafeGrowth training through Louisiana AARP is part of this story (eg: read The Hollygrove Story and Bus Shelter Madness). 
Picture
New Orleans' Hollygrove - success story

Fast forward…

Only four murders this year. What's down? Crime, by 78%. What's up? Community events, garden centers, and Night Out Against Crime. AARP-sponsored strategic planning sessions with residents charted new urban designs for elder-friendly places. The Hollygrove Walking Club now walks for health and peace.

Two weeks ago Hollygrove won a national MetLife Foundation award from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. Watch this new videoon their success story.

Here's another video, this one about their garden program.

The rappers are right. The hood's where it's at!

Share

0 Comments

19/10/2011

IMAGINE THIS - TRANSFORMING THE UNTRANSFORMABLE

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Last blog was about cohousing as a way out of a Wire-esque future. Here's another.

I love winning stories, especially in places with special challenges. Winning stories have power; cynics are exposed with winners under their nose.

Wins in Philadelphia have appeared here previously in the Semillia arts initiative and the city's vibrant South Street.

Eastern north Philadelphia however has special challenges. At a policing conference last week I spoke to a participant from a 2010 SafeGrowth training. Sarah Sturtevant is a talented member of Philadelphia's LISC team and shared some wonderful stories with me. 

One was about a redeveloped Rainbow de Colores park. See Sarah's blog HERE.
Picture
Kids playing in a transformed park

A few other wins are described HERE.

Then I came upon a great video of their visioning sessions. Says one person in the video: "When you build a plan to fix problems you might be wildly successful and fix all the problems, but still not create a good community."

How true.

The video Our Community, Our Vision. 

Thanks Sarah to you, your fellow LISCers, and especially those community members and local organizations committed to wins. You all remind me of another Sarah I wrote about a few years ago. She too was remarkable. 

Thanks for your inspiration.

Share

0 Comments

12/10/2011

AVOIDING A WIRE-ESQUE NIGHTMARE - PART 2

0 Comments

Read Now
 
One of my favorite quotes in The Wire is when a 16-year-old drug dealer points to a run-down apartment and says, "…this shit! This is ME, y'all. Right here!" I've heard real drug dealers say that.

Author Arthur C. Clarke once wrote the only way to discover the limits of the possible is to venture a little way into the impossible.

Unworkable neighborhoods demand a different future. Higher density housing may replace sprawling suburbs for reasons both environmental and economic. But too often we get old style house design and traditional apartment buildings. We get unmanaged and decrepit public housing that ends up as gang-breeding warehouses. Witness all-too-real neighborhoods in The Wire.

The Wire never won a major award and had modest ratings. Yet it's described as the greatest TV series ever made. Part of that is due to its bleak existential portrait and the warning it offers. Clearly, we need to venture into the impossible.

I recently saw just such a vision in Victoria BC - Fernwood Urban Village, an elegant and well designed development proposal for density co-housing.


FERNWOOD URBAN VILLAGE
Picture
Rendering of Fernwood Urban Village

Cohousing is resident-planned, owned and managed equity housing. When I contacted cohousing projects around Seattle, many had affordable rental units. Enough of those in our future and maybe we could eliminate public housing altogether!

Like most cohousing, Fernwood is pedestrian-oriented with common dining rooms, media rooms, and workshop. Residents own their private residence but the design "makes social interaction easy and integral to everyday life." Each unit has it's own kitchen but residents usually choose to share a few meals each week in the common house.

Unlike gated communities, resident-owners share co-housing design and management. Thus, residents learn problem-solving and collaborative decision-making skills for handling conflict later on.
Picture
Uplands cohousing, first in the UK

Municipalities rarely encourage or provide financial incentives for cohousing. That needs to change. We need to venture into the impossible.

Check out co-housing movements in the U.S., Canada, Britain, and Australia.

Share

0 Comments

6/10/2011

AVOIDING A WIRE-ESQUE NIGHTMARE - PART 1

0 Comments

Read Now
 
David Kennedy’s book Don't Shout for eradicating gang violence describes only the first step. It skims root causes that create gangs in the first place. There is more - the neighborhood and the street and the housing where gangs breed.

A few years ago an HBO crime drama, The Wire, portrayed contemporary gang life and a cultural war against the urban underclass. Striking to me was the similarity between gang ghettoes in The Wire and the actual housing projects we work in SafeGrowth programs. We call them "gang breeders" because that is exactly what such nightmarish places create.

Five years after The Wire ended we are deep in recession and housing is undergoing a transformative tsunami. Foreclosed houses in outer urban rings are leaving swaths of ghost suburbs. Inner urban rings are densifying into a new kind of suburb where demands for multi-family housing and apartment rentals are exploding. 


A WIRE-ESQUE FUTURE?

Are Wire-esque nightmares in our future? Suburban ghettoes? A new kind of vertical poverty, growing in cities like LA, Chicago, Toronto and New York?

How can we build denser, environmentally friendly housing? How can we satisfy the needs of the future and make livable and safe habitat? 

Intentional communities provide a proven answer. One successful version is co-housing. I've studied co-housing for 20 years and visited dozens in different countries. I've spent time with architect Jan Gudmand-Hoyer who pioneered the idea in the 1960s. 

In North America co-housing has been around for a few decades. There are about a hundred in the US and Canada. In Oregon, Washington and British Columbia alone there are 24 projects, a third of which have been running for over 15 years.
Picture

McCamant and Durrett write about co-housing. Their recent book Creating Cohousing describes it.

Next blog: How can we make this a reality?

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
    C. Ray Jeffery
    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
    Drottninghog
    Emotional Intelligence
    Entertainment Districts
    Environmental Criminology
    Ethics
    Europe
    Evidence-based
    Eyes On The Street
    Fake News
    Fear Of Crime
    Feminism
    Food Access
    Future Cities
    Global Warming
    Governance
    Graffiti
    Green Spaces
    H22
    H22 Smart City Expo
    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
    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
    TOD
    Transportation
    Urban Decline
    Urbanism
    Urban Planning
    Violence
    Youth


    ARCHIVES

    July 2022
    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


​AlterNation LLC is the parent company managing the SafeGrowth Alliance. 
Check out our website: www.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 >
      • PORTLAND - TriMet (2022)
    • 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