Produce gardens can help to tackle urban blight in rust beltcities

Can produce gardens make a difference to communities in former industrial cities? Allison M Krusky took part in a program in Flint, Michigan, which catalogued urban blight as well as community gardens. She finds that residents who lived within 100 meters of a produce garden were much more likely to better maintain their yards compared to those close to vacant, overgrown lots. Given that homeowners tend to replicate the landscaping decisions of their neighbors, she argues that encouraging produce gardens could be a way to tackle urban blight in cities such as Flint

Busy Streets Theory: The Effects of Communityâ engaged Greening on Violence

Lack of maintenance on vacant neighborhood lots is associated with higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress for nearby residents. Overgrown grasses and dense brush provide hiding spots for criminals and space to conduct illicit activities. This study builds upon previous research by investigating greening programs that engage community members to conduct routine maintenance on vacant lots within their neighborhoods. The Clean & Green program is a communityâ based solution that facilitates residentâ driven routine maintenance of vacant lots in a midsized, Midwestern city. We use mixed effects regression to compare assault and violent crime counts on streets where vacant lot(s) are maintained by community members (N = 216) versus streets where vacant lots were left alone (N = 446) over a 5â year timeframe (2009â 2013). Street segments with vacant lots maintained through the Clean & Green program had nearly 40% fewer assaults and violent crimes than street segments with vacant, abandoned lots, which held across 4 years with a large sample and efforts to test counterfactual explanations. Communityâ engaged greening programs may not only provide a solution to vacant lot maintenance, but also work as a crime prevention or reduction strategy. Engaging the community to maintain vacant lots in their neighborhood reduces costs and may increase the sustainability of the program.HighlightsBlighted and abandoned properties generate substantial costs and risk for postindustrial cities.Communityâ engaged maintenance of properties can reduce blight and increase social cohesion.We compare levels of crime on streets with â greenedâ versus unmaintained vacant lots.Community greened lots may reduce blight and crime at lower cost to cities and build social capital.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146412/1/ajcp12270_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146412/2/ajcp12270.pd

The effects of produce gardens on neighborhoods: a test of the greening hypothesis in an industrial city

Researchers have found that gardens and landscaping designs can diffuse throughout neighborhoods. In the present study, we extend this research by examining if produce gardens on reclaimed vacant lots can have a radiating and positive, linear effect on the surrounding residential parcels. If well-maintained parcels tend to cluster together then we would expect that parcels proximal to a well-maintained produce garden would have better maintenance than parcels near an undeveloped vacant lot. We refer to this transformative process as the Greening Hypothesis. In the present study, we investigate yard maintenance observations of residential properties located near a produce garden, compared with those near an undeveloped vacant lot while controlling for residents' neighborhood perceptions and census demographic data. Our study area was urban and residential with higher than normal levels of property abandonment and urban blight. Our results, supporting the greening hypothesis, indicated that residential parcels proximal to produce gardens were better maintained than parcels near undeveloped vacant lots. Study implications support policies and programs which include greening initiatives as part of community development strategies. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Assessing physical disorder in urban neighborhoods: Reliability and validity of the Parcel Maintenance Observation Tool (PMOT)

Research on neighborhood factors that influence health and crime often use neighborhood measures of geographic areas such as census tracts, wards, and postal sectors. These administratively defined areas, however, may mask the heterogeneity of neighborhood influences. In response to calls for more specific measures, we tested the reliability and validity of the Parcel Maintenance Observation Tool (PMOT)-a new measure of physical disorder on property parcels. The results included baseline assessments of 6134 parcels in 2 urban neighborhoods, inter-correlations, inter-rater reliability, and tests of concurrent validity. Most of the measures had high or adequate inter-rater reliability. The PMOT measures differentiated between (a) parcels with occupied and unoccupied buildings and (b) vacant lots included in a property maintenance program and no-program vacant lots. The discussion focuses on potential uses of the PMOT for understanding the effects of neighborhood physical disorder and for evaluating health promotion and crime prevention programs