Taking it to the Streets
There is no doubt that activity on our streets creates a vibrant community atmosphere while promoting health and wellness. ReThink Red Deer is collaborating with other organizations and businesses in the city to plan a series of activities this summer. The pilot project called “Summer Active Streets” is A Community Active Transportation Celebration that everyone can enjoy.
The intent is to increase awareness of the health, social and environmental benefits of reducing our use of private vehicles in favor of other modes of transportation – either self-propelled or multiple rider (car pools, transit).
Activities kick off with a “Street Films” video and discussion on Monday, April 27th at the Red Deer College – Margaret Parsons Theatre from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. ReThink Red Deer will also collaborate with The City of Red Deer in promoting a “Bike to Work Breakfast” on Thursday, May 21st.
The emphasis is on fun events that have positive spin-offs in terms of personal health, environmental health and community spirit – events that encourage people to walk, bike, take transit, car pool, skateboard or find alternate ways to get around the city.
Summer Active Streets will involve a series of events and activities, with each being led by collaborating organizations. Some may be planned to complement existing community events. Elements that might be included* are: “ride free” Transit Passes for a day or a week, to introduce new riders to transit, demonstration bike-only lanes (temporary barricades and pylons to create short term bike lanes on wide streets like Ross St.), prizes and corporate challenges, charitable fund-raising activities, coupons for downtown businesses, citizen “bike together” groups and more. *All the proposed activities would be subject to approval by involved agencies, availability of sponsors/funding, etc.
How’s this relate to Crime Prevention you ask? Simple, it creates more “Eyes on the Street”. In Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED), we call this Activity Support - it encourages community interaction, activities and the intended use of public space by residents and other legitimate users discourages criminal acts. Natural Surveillance by the intended users is casual and occurs spontaneously as a result of the increase in legitimate activity.
Activities such as those noted above help us build safe and healthy communities. Cycling is a prime example and is being embraced in many countries around the world. Portland Oregon is one such city, in fact, its called “Bike City“. A little innovation can go a long way and ultimately leads to more than just better health, it creates a greener environment, less crime, more local business and the list goes on …
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Public events like the one’s Steven writes of in Taking It To The Streets are excellent. They educate the public once again in how, together, we build safe and healthy communities.
I would like to offer another perspective, especially in regards to CPTED.
If we acknowledge that urban design – and both Steven and I do this constantly – and CPTED can have a major impact reducing opporunities for crime in public places, then we must never forget that “opportunity reduction” is not just about physical design.
There is a nasty tendency in CPTED to assume that by reducing crime opportunity through physical fixes – better lighting, CCTV, landscape design – that is the solution we need.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Physical CPTED – 1st Generation CPTED – is only the first step.
Stopping with 1st Generation CPTED is like eating the cake but scraping off the icing. Yuk. Kind of misses the point.
Social CPTED – 2nd Generation CPTED – must also be integrated into your approach. These are the social strategies that build the sense of community to sustain prevention in the long run.
I was just in Victoria BC, a magnificent city with beautiful neighbourhoods. But for a few years now it has been suffering a nasty wave of graffiti. And it is everywhere.
I drove from one end of the city to another and it was difficult to find surfaces that were NOT covered by ugly graffiti – and I’m not talking about street art or political statements. I’m talking about gross vandalism.
I know Victoria is about to launch a community initiative to tackle this – precisely the kind of thing that Red Deer’s “Summer Active Streets” begins to address.
But we must also remember that simply creating street activities and erasing the graffiti (aka CPTED’s activity support and beautification programs) is NOT enough! It will take FAR more than that to get beyond simply reducing the physical opportunity for this crime.
CPTED must involve community “building” in the truest sense of that word. It means integrating community cohesion and a sense of neighbourliness. It means creating small, geographically distinct neighbourhoods in which the local folks are engaged and interested.
Painting out the graffiti will not do the trick. All our research shows us that! We must build the physical and social neighbourhoods where local people themselves have the positive motives to tackle the negative motives that trigger incidents like graffiti and vandalism in the first place.
Without that, we are just fooling ourselves that we are making a difference!
Consider this: The federal crime stats for urban areas shows Victoria consistently in the top ten worse crime cities in the country
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/85-002-x2007005-eng.pdf
Do we really think the various disorder and social issues that land Victoria in the infamous top 10 list (of which graffiti is but a tip-of-the-iceberg warning) can be tackled with paint-outs? Graffiti paint-outs are necessary, but they are far short of the mark if we want to avoid walking down this same path 5 or 10 years from now.
This month the International CPTED Association is launching the new CPTED Guidebooks for designers and community builders. The inaugural guidebook will be about graffiti. Pick it up at http://www.cpted.net
Meantime, for my money, I use the following DPS method to determine whether my prevention initiatives are on-track:
Diagnose – analyse the specifics WITH those who live and work in the place
Prescribe – along WITH those who live and work there, implement strategies to remove the crime opportunities
Sustain – for long term impact, we must remove the crime motives. That means building a strong sense of cohesion in a small geographical neighbourhood, maximizing the local assets, and then transferring the skills to ignite the energy in those who will actually get things done
Greg Saville
http://safe-growth.blogspot.com
Hi Steve,
Excellent job on this newsletter and your campaign. Good for you for taking the time to develop this newsletter. It is a great crime prevention initiative and a tool to encourage community participation. Hope to talk soon.