Comments on: Can smarter land use help stop violence in the community? http://blog.smartgrowthamerica.org/2009/11/17/can-smarter-land-use-help-stop-violence-in-the-community/ News from around the country on creating better choices for our communities Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:47:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By: Nicholas Helmholdt http://blog.smartgrowthamerica.org/2009/11/17/can-smarter-land-use-help-stop-violence-in-the-community/comment-page-1/#comment-5363 Nicholas Helmholdt Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:06:30 +0000 http://blog.smartgrowthamerica.org/?p=944#comment-5363 Thanks for sharing this challenging field of research on your website. I did some exploratory investigation of the relationship between adverse neighborhood outcomes (property crime, violent crimes, and residential fires) and the interventions used for vacant housing. It is encouraging to see that Dr. Barans is exploring this issue with the public health frame. One of the main challenge that he will face is the fluid state of the neighborhoods he targets. Defining what constitutes a vacant structure can be tricky, and this situation can be made more difficult by the fact that city officials do not have the resources to track these low-value properties carefully. Another piece of interesting research is the recent study that experimentally verified the "Broken Windows" theory. A team of Dutch investigators (Keizer, Lindenberg & Steg, 2008) found significant results for all six of the physical disorder variables they tested in real world settings. Another researcher who is breaking ground in this field is Dan Immergluck who has examined the relationship between foreclosure and crime activity (Immergluck & Smith, 2006). I put the citations for these studies below. I also added links for my research on this topic. Keizer, K., Lindenberg, S., & Steg, L. (2008). The spreading of disorder. Science, 322(5905). Immergluck, D., & Smith, G. (2006). The impact of single-family mortgage foreclosure on neighborhood crime. Housing Studies, 21(6), 851-866. https://www.box.net/shared/ghivh1pykt http://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/13804/1/Helmholdt,%20Nicholas.pdf Thanks for sharing this challenging field of research on your website. I did some exploratory investigation of the relationship between adverse neighborhood outcomes (property crime, violent crimes, and residential fires) and the interventions used for vacant housing. It is encouraging to see that Dr. Barans is exploring this issue with the public health frame.

One of the main challenge that he will face is the fluid state of the neighborhoods he targets. Defining what constitutes a vacant structure can be tricky, and this situation can be made more difficult by the fact that city officials do not have the resources to track these low-value properties carefully.

Another piece of interesting research is the recent study that experimentally verified the “Broken Windows” theory. A team of Dutch investigators (Keizer, Lindenberg & Steg, 2008) found significant results for all six of the physical disorder variables they tested in real world settings. Another researcher who is breaking ground in this field is Dan Immergluck who has examined the relationship between foreclosure and crime activity (Immergluck & Smith, 2006). I put the citations for these studies below. I also added links for my research on this topic.

Keizer, K., Lindenberg, S., & Steg, L. (2008). The spreading of disorder. Science, 322(5905).

Immergluck, D., & Smith, G. (2006). The impact of single-family mortgage foreclosure on neighborhood crime. Housing Studies, 21(6), 851-866.

https://www.box.net/shared/ghivh1pykt

http://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/13804/1/Helmholdt,%20Nicholas.pdf

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