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Correcting the "Crimogenic" Crowd
By Laurence Aurbach
February 14, 2005
What follows is a rebuttal to the article "Crime-Friendly
Neighborhoods" by Stephen Town and Randal O'Toole, which appeared
in the Feb. 2005 issue of Reason magazine. For those who prefer
an executive summary, I begin with a letter to the editors of Reason.
After that, I go through a point-by-point rebuttal complete with
sources and citations.
To the Editor, Reason Magazine:
Town and O'Toole's article contains many distortions and misinformation;
so much so that it is an embarrassment to the authors and to Reason
magazine.
New urbanists regard Oscar Newman as a groundbreaking
writer and designer, and in their practice they have taken his design
prescriptions to heart. Conversely, Town and O'Toole have flagrantly twisted
and misread Newman's findings. According to Newman, natural surveillance
is a critical element of crime prevention. In residential areas this is
identical to Jane Jacobs' "eyes on the street" concept.
Newman was fully in favor of public, shared space provided it was situated
and designed correctly. His designs are replete with examples of interior
courts, parks, playgrounds and tot lots. His primary concerns were that
the shared spaces be located within residents' zones of influence, and
that their boundaries be clearly demarcated. This is what Newman meant
by "reducing permeability." Newman made no overall recommendation to close
off streets and paths that had adequate natural surveillance, and indeed,
he was generally in favor of increased circulation. He noted with disapproval
a "superblock, created by closing off existing streets." Describing his
design for Indianapolis public housing, he wrote, "we have developed a
system of streets to penetrate the entire site" where increased circulation
would "greatly facilitate" police patrols. The street layout had no cul-de-sacs;
rather, it used T-intersections to reduce through traffic -- a technique
often used by new urbanists.
Newman's own design prescriptions state that residences should look over,
and be associated with, adjacent streets and land. A key technique, he
wrote, is "the close juxtaposition of the building with the street so
that as many apartment interiors and building entries as possible face
the street." The narrower the street, the more of it that will fall under
residents' zones of influence; Newman described a 20-foot-wide, eighteenth-century
Dutch street with approval. He criticized residential buildings that were
turned away from the street, with parking lots in front. He recommended
sidewalks and on-street parking, and for single family dwellings, setbacks
no greater than 25 feet.
New urbanists put Defensible Space policies into practice to redevelop
a public housing project in Norfolk, Va. The result was a dramatic drop
in crime. A study of eight public housing projects redeveloped according
to new urbanist principles found overall economic improvement, along with
reduced crime in four cities where records were available.
Town and O'Toole misrepresent the report, "Closing Streets and Alleys
to Reduce Crime." The studies cited in the report only looked at the short-term
effects of street closings. Many crime experts agree that street closings
can be effective in the short term, but long term solutions involve more
comprehensive strategies. The report references only eight credible studies,
which are self-selected for positive results, usually unable to control
for related effects such as increased police presence, and applicable
to just a few specific locations and situations.
Meanwhile, other research suggests that spaces with a combination of
highly-visible frontages and through traffic on well-connected networks
have fewer crimes than comparable cul-de-sac neighborhoods. Computerized
analyses (known as "Space Syntax") supporting this conclusion are cited
by the UK's Home Office Crime Reduction Centre. Following the largest
urban crime study undertaken in the southern hemisphere, a city planner
with Gosnells, Australia, said, "The cul de sac developments, that characterised
residential development over the last 30 years, appear to be an invitation
to crime in that they reduced pedestrian movement and accessibility to
facilities."
The bottom line is how our society addresses threats and the fear of
strangers. The crude and invasive gates, barricades, fences and street
closures that are so much a feature of post 9-11 landscaping (especially
in our nation's capital) are expressions of fear, not strength, and may
in the long run be counterproductive. Crowds of people on commercial streets
may experience more crime than those in a patrolled mall. But at the same
time it is that freedom, openness and interaction that many believe is
the most valuable feature of great towns and cities. Those who cherish
cities can appreciate Daniel Patrick Moynihan's attitude toward threats:
"Ours must be openness and fearlessness in the face of those who hide
in the darkness. A precaution, yes, sequester, no."
A Point-by-Point Rebuttal
to Town and O’Toole’s "Crime-Friendly Neighborhoods"
1) Burras Road: The Burras Road example does not prove that increased
connectivity causes crime. It may prove that one specific bike path
was poorly designed, with insufficient natural surveillance. However,
Town and O’Toole might not be providing all the relevant information.
According to local
newspaper reports, both the housing association and the city council
have refused the residents’ requests to close the bike path. So this
is not a matter of dogmatic city planners alone.
2) Misrepresenting new urbanism: Once again, O’Toole is
painting a false portrait of new urbanism. Criticisms such as his
have been repeated so many times that the Congress for the New Urbanism
has a page of "Frequently
Asked Questions" on its website to address them. Naturally, Town and
O’Toole choose to ignore this information.
2a) Choice: Town and O’Toole write, "The Congress for the New
Urbanism, founded in 1993, declares on its Web site that 'All development
should be in the form of compact, walkable neighborhoods.' " A Google
search indicates that this phrase does not appear on the CNU website.
However, it is an accurate statement of the preferences of new urbanists.
It is not a policy prescription for coercion. From the CNU’s Frequently
Asked Questions:
Q: Is CNU in favor of requiring development to be New Urbanist?
A: Today's regulations overwhelmingly stop New Urbanist development
from being built. We are in favor of repealing these anti-choice rules.
In some locations, codes mandating good urbanism make sense. They make
sense in downtown areas, historic cities, and places where the demand
for New Urbanism far exceeds the supply. However, we are not interested
in coercing people to live in New Urbanism. We believe it will succeed
on market demand.
2b) Congestion: Old and new urbanism does reduce congestion within
neighborhoods of small, well-connected blocks because traffic is dispersed
and bottlenecks are eliminated. Outside of such neighborhoods, on
arterials and highways that channel and concentrate traffic with no alternative
routes, old and new urbanism will be of little help. However, old
and new urbanism does reduce per capita driving, and several studies have
confirmed this.* Town and O’Toole say, "Denser development did not
significantly reduce per capita driving," but this is patently false.
Even Wendell Cox will tell you that per capita, people in dense urban
areas put 40% fewer vehicle miles on their cars. Some studies analyzing
specific urban neighborhoods find the number of vehicle miles traveled
per capita is one-quarter that of suburbanites.
* Including but not limited to: Handy, Susan L. and Kelly J. Clifton,
"Local Shopping as a Strategy for Reducing Automobile Travel," Transportation,
Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 317-346. 2001. Handy, Susan L., "Urban form
and pedestrian choices: Study of Austin neighborhoods." Transportation
Research Record, 1552, 135-144. 1996. Krizek, Kevin, "Residential
Relocation and Changes in Urban Travel: Does Neighborhood-Scale Urban
Form Matter?" Journal of the American Planning Association, Spring
(2003), Vol. 69, No. 3. Rajamani, et al., "Assessing the impact of urban
form measures in nonwork trip mode choice after controlling for demographic
and level-of-service effects," Transportation Research Board 2003
Annual Meeting CD-ROM.
2c) Health: Over centuries, the suburbs have been promoted as
healthier than city living. Credible research is now appearing that
indicates that suburban developments may not be the health panacea they
have been sold as.** As for specific research studies about the
health impacts of new urban communities, none have been performed yet.
Most new urban communities have been in existence for only a few years
-- not long enough to evaluate health impacts.
** Including but not limited to: Howard Frumkin, Lawrence Frank and Richard
Jackson, Urban Sprawl and Public Health: Designing, Planning and Building
for Healthy Communities, 2004; Sturm, R., and D. A. Cohen, "Suburban
Sprawl and Physical and Mental Health." Public Health, Vol. 118,
No. 7, 2004.
2d) Schools: The new urbanist recommendations for schools are
in line with many other organizations and movements such as the National
Trust for Historic Preservation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
New urbanists promote small, neighborhood-oriented, pedestrian accessible
schools in renovated, historic facilities wherever possible. Such
guidelines do in fact result in better-performing, more economical schools.
They are sited in locations that provide a point of community pride and
that allow students to walk or bike along much safer routes. See
David Goldberg, "Of
Sprawl Schools and Small Schools," On Common Ground, National
Association of Realtors.
There are tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of children living in
new urban communities. Many parents in new urban communities believe
they live in the best place for raising children. They deeply care
about and are involved with the quality of their local schools.
A key element of new urbanism is "An
elementary school is close enough so that most children can walk from
their home."
3) Defensible Space Concepts: New urbanists regard Oscar Newman
as a groundbreaking writer and designer, and in their practice they have
taken his design prescriptions to heart. Conversely, Town and O’Toole
have flagrantly twisted and misread Newman’s findings.
It was modernist, Corbusier-inspired "towers in the park" site planning
that Newman found so dangerous. Specifically, Newman recommended against
"nebulous" private land surrounding residences that appeared to be owned
by no one. He wrote that, through design, land should be marked
and associated with adjacent buildings and clusters of buildings (Design
Guidelines for Creating Defensible Space, p. 106). This
creates "zones of influence," spaces that residents will monitor and feel
responsibility for (p. 105). According to Newman, natural surveillance
is a critical element of crime prevention. Whatever the details
of his criticism of Jane Jacobs, this is identical to her "eyes on the
street" concept.
Newman observed that in traditional urban design, residents' zone of
influence is extended into the street (p. 43). His own recommendations
for new projects include guidelines for accomplishing this (p.116).
His design prescriptions state that residences should look over, and be
associated with, adjacent streets and land. A key technique is "the close
juxtaposition of the building with the street so that as many apartment
interiors and building entries as possible face the street." (p.118) The
narrower the street, the more of it that will fall under residents' zone
of influence (p. 121); Newman described a 20-foot-wide, eighteenth-century
Dutch street with approval (pp. 40-41). He criticized residential
buildings that were turned away from the street, with parking lots in
front (p.119). He recommended sidewalks and on-street parking (p.
121), and for single family dwellings, setbacks no greater than 25 feet
(p.77).
Newman was fully in favor of public, shared space provided it was situated
and designed correctly. His designs are replete with examples of
interior courts, parks, playgrounds and tot lots (pp. 111-115, 126-156).
His primary concerns were that the shared spaces be located within residents'
zones of influence, and that their boundaries be clearly demarcated.
This is what Newman meant by "reducing permeability." Newman made
no overall recommendation to close off streets and paths that had adequate
natural surveillance, and indeed, he was generally in favor of increased
circulation. He noted with disapproval a "superblock, created by
closing off existing streets" (p.117). Describing his design for
Indianapolis public housing, he wrote, "we have developed a system of
streets to penetrate the entire site" where increased circulation would
"greatly facilitate" police patrols (p. 154). The street layout
had no cul-de-sacs; rather, it used T-intersections to reduce through
traffic -- a technique often used by new urbanists.
New urbanists put Defensible Space policies into practice to redevelop
a public housing project in Norfolk, Va. The result was a dramatic
drop in crime; see "Restoring
Community through Traditional Neighborhood Design: A Case Study of Diggs
Town Public Housing." A study of eight public housing projects
redeveloped according to new urbanist principles found overall economic
improvement, along with reduced crime in four cities where records were
available. See "Assessing
Economic Change in HOPE VI Neighborhoods." Also relevant is
Robert Stueteville's editorial in which he argues that new urbanism is
compatible with most of the goals of Secured by Design: "New
Urbanism Does Not Promote Crime."
4) Closing Streets and Alleys to Reduce Crime: These quotes are
taken directly from the "Closing Streets" guide:
"The guide does not cover temporary street closures during demonstrations,
festivals, and sporting events; street closures as part of a traffic-calming
scheme, or to reduce cruising (which falls under traffic calming); securing
apartment complexes (whether public or private) with fences and gates;
securing facilities such as parking lots or shopping malls by entrance
closures or fence installation; crime-inhibiting street layouts in new
residential neighborhoods (this is best considered at the planning and
design stage of new developments, not in response to current crime problems);
and so-called 'gated communities,' small residential developments for
middle-class or wealthy residents; in this country, these enclaves are
usually designed as such from the beginning, not subsequently created
out of previously public streets."
"Unfortunately, only a relatively small number of projects involving
street closures have been evaluated (for example, no published evaluations
exist of substantial street-closure schemes in Dallas; Houston; Chicago;
Bridgeport, Connecticut; and Oakland, California and the studies that
have been published tend to focus on successful projects, simply because
studies of unsuccessful projects are less likely to be published. Furthermore,
not all research studies on street closures are well designed."
"To help you decide how much weight to place on each study, Table 1
includes ratings of the research designs' quality: weak, adequate, or
strong. You will see that several of the studies are rated as weak,
and you should be aware that even those rated as adequate or strong
have their limitations. Few of them can separate the effects of street
or alley closings from those of other measures taken at the same time,
and few examine the effects on crime or disorder for more than a year.
This means that little is known about street closure's long-term effects."
--Ronald V. Clarke, "Closing
Streets and Alleys to Reduce Crime: Should You Go Down This Road?"
To sum up, "Closing Streets" references only eight credible studies,
which are self-selected for positive results, usually unable to control
for related effects such as increased police presence, and applicable
to just a few specific locations and situations.
5) Hulme: Hulme is in fact recognized as good example of urban
regeneration in Britain. In the book "Urban Villages and the Making of
Communities," David Lunts writes "In Hulme, Manchester, more than 2,000
new homes have been constructed around an infrastructure of linked streets
and squares, in an explicit attempt to capture something of the character
of the dense urban neighborhood that was torn down to make way for disastrous
urban flats in the 1960s" (p. 199), and Hollingsworth, et al, write, "Hulme
in Manchester is perhaps the best example where a high level of investment
and significant intervention seems to have worked" (p. 141).
What’s more, Hulme is featured in Ian Colquhoun’s book, "Design Out Crime:
Creating Safe and Sustainable Communities" as a case study of a "safe
and sustainable" community.
Stephen Town has not publicized his study of Hulme, but he did make a
brief reply to Robert Steuteville’s PLANetizen op-ed. His criticism seems
to be that Hulme has communal and "pretty ugly" rear courtyards. He finds
Hulme's crime figures to be "frightening," but does not mention if the
new development has improved crime rates. Other sources confirm
that the area has seen a reduction in crime (see below)
Mr. Town made a reference to a website about Secured by Design principles,
www.designagainstcrime.org. That website contains
a case study about Hulme, written by the Design Against Crime team,
that is described like this:
"Hulme Park in Manchester: An inner-city park was redeveloped in an
area of Manchester notorious for robbery and burglary. The park had
to be safe and open to different users. The open-plan style includes
pathways connecting the park to the rest of the city. The permeable
boundary encourages use and inclusiveness, yet can easily be repaired."
The
study goes on to say:
"The apartments facing the park cost Ł20,000 more than their counterparts
facing away from the park. The park has been relatively free from crime
and was described by a local Police Officer as “a triumph of design”.
While the area has seen a reduction in crime, it should be noted that
the whole area has changed with new housing and the influx of new residents,
thus making it difficult to establish the impact of the park."
So all the sources I’ve found, including those referenced by Mr. Town,
claim that Hulme is a model of urban regeneration and crime reduction
practices.
6a) Other research: Research teams using Space Syntax analysis
have excellent information to contribute to this discussion. Their research
on the relationship between street patterns and crime is summarized on
their "Housing and Crime" page.
6b) A relevant study is "Do
Burglars Understand Defensible Space? New evidence on the relation between
crime and space." A sample excerpt:
"These results suggest that there is no single spatial factor which
deters crime. Several factors must be present together. On the whole,
linear integrated spaces with some through movement and strong intervisibility
of good numbers of entrances (highly 'constituted') are the safest spaces,
while visually broken up spaces, with little movement potential and
few intervisible entrances (poorly constituted) are the worst. This
is all confirmed by statistical analysis, which also shows that you
are safer from burglary from carriageways than from footpaths, and from
spaces with good visual connections rather than from visually isolated
parts.
"We cannot then simply say that through streets are better than cul
de sacs. They can be, but it all depends on all the other properties
being present. In our third town, for example, there are two parallel
through roads adjacent to each other, one with very high intervisibility
of dwelling entrances, the other with entrance intervisibility everywhere
broken up by long driveways with high hedges, concealed entrances, and
'cul de sac drives' giving secluded access to a few dwellings. The former
has virtually no crime, while the latter is a veritable crime 'hot line'.
We fully expect, then, that there will be areas where linear, well-constituted
shallow cul de sacs will be safer than poorly constituted, visually
broken up and spatially segregated through spaces. It all depends on
how the local 'menu' of layout targets is put together. Criminals will
always select the most vulnerable locations on offer."
Original research on which this paper is based includes: "Spatial
configuration and vulnerability of residential burglary: a case study
of a city in Taiwan."
6c) From the UK’s
Home Office Crime Reduction Centre website:
"Through detailed spatial analysis Hiller and Shu found that the type
of public spaces from which burglary was least likely to occur were
‘through carriageways, with good movement potential and visual links,
and with a good number of line neighbours opening on to both sides of
the carriageway’. In other words: the common or garden street!"
"The type of public space from which burglary was most likely to occur
were ‘dead-end footpaths with little movement and visibility and few
line neighbours’. Hillier and Shu’s conclusions were only possible
by detailed spatial analysis. They could not have reached such conclusions
by simply mapping burglaries using postal addresses. Such information
would not have revealed how burglarised properties were entered."
"For more information see Hillier, B. and Shu, S. (2000) 'Crime and
Urban Layout: The Need for Evidence' in Ballintyne, S., Pease, K. and
McLaren, V. Secure Foundations: Key Issues in Crime Prevention,
Crime Reduction and Community Safety London: IPPR."
-- From "Introduction to Micro-spatial Analysis"
6d) From a Space
Syntax press release, Oct. 30, 2003:
"Space Syntax's work with The City of Gosnells in Western Australia
has helped to win two Crime and Violence awards [for reducing crime]
from the Australian Institute of Criminology. The City of Gosnells'
"Safe City" strategy was launched after a three-year study by Space
Syntax into the relationship between housing layout and crime patterns,
believed to be the largest urban crime study ever undertaken in the
southern hemisphere."
From Australia's Local
Government Focus, July, 2000:
"Applied to Gosnells, Space Syntax research suggests that crime was
highest where pedestrian and vehicle movement was low and visibility
to onlookers negligible. 'The cul de sac developments, that characterised
residential development over the last 30 years, appear to be an invitation
to crime in that they reduced pedestrian movement and accessibility
to facilities,' [city designer] Stephen Thorne said. ... 'We will encourage
mixed development where residential development is based within five
minutes walking distance of retail and other facilities. We will
also carry out tree planting which does not obscure visibility and institute
a policy which prevents high fences obscuring views of the streets and
houses. 'Designing out crime' by encouraging people to use the
streets and creating a greater sense of visibility makes more sense
than other measures to reduce the problem.' "
7) Gates, Barriers and Fear: Neal Kumar Katyal, in his comprehensive
review, "Architecture
as Crime Control" (Yale Law Journal, Volume 111, 2002), discusses
the four major components of design-related crime control: natural surveillance,
territoriality, building community, and strengthening targets. He
reviews the many studies that confirm the surveillability of an area is
a major predictor of its crime rate (p. 21). There is a tension
between surveillance and territoriality: "Natural surveillance emphasizes
openness and visibility; territoriality highlights the need for some closures"
(p.39). However, the crude and invasive gates, barricades, fences
and street closures that are so much a feature of post 9-11 landscaping
(especially in our nation’s capital) are expressions of fear, not strength,
and may in the long run be counterproductive. Katyal is worth quoting
at length on this point:
"Studies show that those who fear crime are most likely to be withdrawn
from public life. And this leads to a multiplier effect: the more people
withdraw, the more crime increases; the more crime increases, the more
people withdraw." (p. 78)
"Subtle architecture that gently reinforces law-abiding norms and prevents
a degree of intrusion is to be preferred to explicit and awkward physical
barricades that reflect the feeling that a community is under siege.
Cheap wire fences do not express a belief in the power of law or norms;
rather, they reflect the opposite. The same can be said for ugly iron
bars on windows, which express the terror of crime as powerfully as
does any sign or published crime statistic.
"This insight suggests that certain forms of architectural prevention
of crime, particularly cheap barricades, will not capture all of the
potential benefits and may be counterproductive. While the tendency
might be to think that all such barricades fall into this category,
there are ways to design subtle devices that barricade without reflecting
fear. Moreover, a whole host of architectural strategies -– such as
the placement of doors and windows, creation of semipublic congregation
spaces, street layout alterations, park redesign, and many more -– generally
avoid such criticisms. Indeed, barricades often substitute for these
other measures, and greater use of these others can reduce the drive
towards an architecture driven by fear. Viewed this way, gated communities
are a byproduct of public disregard of architecture, not a sustainable
solution to crime." (pp. 85-86)
Alain Chiaradia, a Space Syntax researcher, weighs in on the issue of
gating and strangers in "Gates
and the Danger of Some Strangers." He notes that much of the
debate over gated communities revolves around a fear of strangers, while
at the same time many writers and researchers have found benefits associated
with the presence of strangers: "Specifically, Jacobs and others have
stressed that it is interactions between strangers that is valuable for
urban life: certainly for commerce and for the intangible buzz that is
the hallmark of a great city, but very much for security and socialisation
as well."
Chiaradia recognizes that gating is an important strategy in crime control.
However, as he writes, "Gates should be used for remediation, as a short
or medium-term solution to a problem that ultimately needs a much more
comprehensive solution -- large-scale redesign that stitches these areas
back into their urban context."
Index
1. Correcting the Crimogenic Crowd
2. O'Toole's Response to Aurbach
3. A Reply or Two to O'Toole
4. Related Materials on Safety and Neighborhoods
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