New urbanism, crime and the suburbs: a review of the evidence

Sustainability now influences government policy in the UK, Australia and USA and planning policy currently advocates high density, mixed-use residential developments in 'walkable', permeable neighbourhoods, close to public transport, employment and amenities. This clearly demonstrates the growing popularity, influence and application of New Urbanist ideas.This paper reviews the criminological research relating to New Urbanism associated with the three key issues of permeability, rear laneway car parking and mixed-use development. These key issues are discussed from an environmental criminology perspective and challenge New Urbanist assumptions concerning crime. The paper proposes that crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) and its crime risk assessment model represents a valuable tool for New Urbanists to utilise to reduce opportunities for crime and tackle fear of crime in the community. Recommendations for future research and collaboration are discussed

Art deco : of the 20s and 30s

168 p. : il.; 23 cm

STREET NETWORK STRUCTURE AND CRIME RISK: AN AGENT-BASED INVESTIGATION OF THE ENCOUNTER AND ENCLOSURE HYPOTHESES

Street networks shape day-to-day activities in complex ways, dictating where, when, and in what contexts potential victims, offenders, and crime preventers interact with one another. Identifying generalizable principles of such influence offers considerable utility to theorists, policy makers, and practitioners. Unfortunately, key difficulties associated with the observation of these interactions, and control of the settings within which they take place, limit traditional empirical approaches that aim to uncover mechanisms linking street network structure with crime risk. By drawing on parallel advances in the formal analyses of street networks and the computational modeling of crime events interactions, we present a theoretically informed and empirically validated agent-based model of residential burglary that permits investigation of the relationship between street network structure and crime commission and prevention through guardianship. Through the use of this model, we explore the validity of competing theoretical accounts of street network permeability and crime risk—the encounter (eyes on the street) and enclosure (defensible space) hypotheses. The results of our analyses provide support for both hypotheses, but in doing so, they reveal that the relationship between street network permeability and crime is likely nonlinear. We discuss the ramifications of these findings for both criminological theory and crime prevention practice