The Social Ecology of Public Space: Active Streets and Violent Crime in Urban Neighborhoods

Abstract

Drawing on one element of Jacobs' (1961) discussion of the social control benefits of “eyes on the street,” this paper explores the link between the prevalence of active streets and violence in urban neighborhoods. Three distinct data sources from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods are merged to explore the functional form and potential contingency of the active streets-violence relationship: (1) video data capturing the presence of people on neighborhood streets; (2) longitudinal data on adolescents (ages 11 to 16) and their self-reports of witnessing severe violence; and (3) community survey data on neighborhood social organizational characteristics. Results from multilevel models indicate that the proportion of neighborhood streets with adults present exhibits a nonlinear association with exposure to severe violence. At low prevalence, the increasing prevalence of active streets is positively associated with violence exposure. Beyond a threshold, however, increases in the prevalence of active streets serves to reduce the likelihood of violence exposure. The analyses offer no evidence that the curvilinear association between active streets and violence varies by levels of collective efficacy, and only limited evidence that it varies by anonymity. Analyses of data on homicide and violent victimization corroborate these findings.

Neighborhood street activity and greenspace usage uniquely contribute to predicting crime

“…Thus, urban greenspace can motivate individuals to spend more time on the streets of their neighborhood. This increase of "eyes on the street" then can help prevent criminal behavior (20)(21)(22), which is in accordance with the theory of crime prevention through environmental design (23). Through the lens of routine activity theory, residents spending time outside within their neighborhood may be effective guardians against crime (24).…”

Ecological Networks and Neighborhood Social Organization

“…Jane Jacobs forcefully contested the tenets of this movement in her classic work The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), arguing that dense, organically developing, and mixed commercial, institutional, and residential land uses encourage frequent, conventional street activity. In turn, street activity yields “eyes on the street” with associated social control benefits for urban neighborhoods (Browning and Jackson 2013). Less frequently considered in the robust discussion of Jacobs’s work is her emphasis on the prevalence and vitality of local organizational and amenity options in producing everyday intersection of neighborhood residents in public space, that is, public contact .…”

Assessing Adult Exposure to Community Violence

“…First, although this article aimed to identify all recent studies concerning the measurement of community violence exposure in adults, it is possible that relevant studies were not identified and thus not included in this review. In addition, the construct of ''neighborhood violence,'' which is often discussed within the sociology and criminology literature (e.g., Browning & Jackson, 2013;Cooper et al, 2013), was excluded from the present review, given the absence of studies that included robust scales of individuals' perceptions of community violence that also included psychometric data (i.e., estimates of validity and reliability). Thus, the development of reliable and valid scales to measure adults' exposure to community violence may serve to strengthen multimodal approaches to the measurement of neighborhood violence.…”