The police and neighborhood safety BROKEN WINDOWS by JAMES Q. Wilson is Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard and author of. So reads the white lettering on a bench in the West Baltimore neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester, where 34 percent of residential properties are reported to be. Citizens on Patrol, or COP are organized groups of citizens who volunteer their time to patrol their neighborhoods. They act as additional eyes and ears for the police. Personal weblog that looks at current events as well as the history of Washington, DC's Bloomingdale neighborhood. Forging a new form of sport craftsmanship, the Nike Air Yeezy II blends classic Nike court breakthroughs with the performance and aesthetic demands of bringing hype. The Shomrim Brooklyn South Safety Patrol, which covers the neighborhoods of Boro Park, Bensonhurst, and Kensington, was founded in the 1980s by Jacob Daskal.Ways to Make Your Neighborhood Safer, Greener & Fun. SEATTLE, WASHINGTON1) Dare to Dream. Your imagination is the most important resource in transforming your neighborhood. FROMTHESOUTHEASTSIDE OF SEATTLE comes uplifting evidence for the important roles that a clear community vision and a vivid sense of imagination play in improving neighborhood life. The Columbia City district was founded in the 1. Seattle. Resources: Neighborhood Power: Building Community the Seattle Way by Jim Diers (University of Washington Press) ITALY2) Take the Time to Enjoy Your Surroundings. Slowing Down is the first step to a great neighborhood—otherwise you’re too busy to enjoy it. YOUCANLIVE in the greatest neighborhood in the universe but if you can’t take the time to stop in the cozy corner coffee shop, wander over to farmer’s market on Saturday morning, chat for a minute with your neighbor in front of the grocery store then you might as well live on the dark side of the moon. You could learn quite a bit more exploring around your home each evening. A NUMBER OF CITESACROSSITALY came to realize how importance the pace of life is in keeping their communities vital, and launched the Cittaslow movement, known internationally as the. League of Slow Cities in 2. Associated with the burgeoning slow food movement, more than 1. Brazil, Norway, Sweden, Japan, Greece, Switzerland, Great Britain and Canada as well as Italy) joined the network united in the belief that the good life is an unhurried experience. North Philadelphia, among all the struggling communities across the U. S. Tweny years later, this predominantly African- American neighborhood is still poor, with 3. Village of Arts and Humanities. A daycare center has been established, along with a new initiative, Shared Prosperity, to tackle economic conditions in North Philadelphia. The neighborhood now gathers every summer for an annual theater festival, with plays written by young people drawing on their own experiences in North Philly. The Village of Art and Humanities has changed how residents of North Philadelphia think about their home—and how everyone else does too.
Streets are shared public space also belonging to people on foot and bicycles, in baby strollers and wheelchairs. Police soon arrived on the scene and had to admit that this project, although clearly illegal, was a really good idea. In fact, as Dave Marcucci discovered, a simple bench can do the trick. After attending a PPS training course in 2. Marcucci came away inspired by the idea that every neighborhood should have ten great places. He returned home to Mississauga, Ontario determined to make his house, which occupies a prime corner lot, one of the great places within his neighborhood. Marcucci started by tearing out the fencing at the corner of his front yard. As he got to work landscaping the area and constructing a bench, he received a lot of quizzical comments. The bench soon became a place where everyone in the neighborhood came to sit. Older people stop to rest on it during their evening strolls. Kids sit there as they wait for the school bus in the morning. Families out for a walk use it to take a breather. The complications that Marcucci first anticipated have not come to pass. The bench has not been vandalized, nor has it attracted negative uses. It was installed without approval from the city, but no one has demanded to see a permit. I’ve met my neighbors, and other people I’d never met before. You sit on the bench, and as people walk by, they stop and talk to you!” The bench is so popular that later that fall, a homeowner around the corner from Marcucci added his own bench for the whole neighborhood to use. On top of that it had its own unique and daunting problems. Dudley Street itself, once blighted, is now a bustling main street sporting a Town Common, complete with a farmer’s market; the Vine Street Community Center, featuring a technology skills lab, gym, youth center, and dance studio; and locally- owned shops and restaurants. Instead of tidy frame homes behind white picket fences, it’s rehabbed rowhouses. In the place of a corner soda fountain stands the Ideal Sub Shop featuring a taste of the Cape Verde islands, a former Portuguese colony off the coast of Africa. But it still resembles the idealized America many of us long for, where kids stop off for candy at Davey’s Market after school and folks gather for summer evening concerts at the bandstand on the town common. The Dudley Street business district is the heart of this revived community. In a series of vision sessions, residents expressed their hopes of creating an urban village—a concept now in vogue among urban planners but quite unexpected from poor and immigrant people, who are supposed to care only about “practical things” like affordable housing and new jobs, not worry about frills like urban villages. What you have here are a lot of people here who grew up in the rural South and the Cape Verde Islands and the Caribbean,” says Gus Newport, who helped carry out the community’s vision as director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. Saying Hello to Everyone We Meet.” was a typical comment, along with “I want affordable housing and schools with beautiful green playgrounds.” The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative was formed in 1. Dudley Street business district and created the Town Common, as well as building new parks and playgrounds, constructing 4. Roxbury in form of an urban village. Resources: “Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative”: www. EBOLI, ITALY7) Take a Stroll. The Latin custom of an evening walk is good for your health and for the vitality of your neighborhood. WE ALLKNOWTHATWALKING IS GOODFOR US. WRITERADAMGOODHEART described this scene near the main square of the Italian hill town of Eboli. Later, they’d been joined by an old lady who was pushing the stroller. Next, they were surrounded by men, jackets draped over their shoulders. The words passegiata and paseo translate into English as promenade—and the idea translates too, according to Christopher Alexander, a former Berkeley Architecture professor who has devoted his life to scientifically studying what makes places work. Our experiments suggest that it is not? Think about what blocks in your neighborhood show promise for strolling and what improvements could be made to get people out to meet their neighbors. Resources: A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. OXFORD, MISSISSIPPIHARTLAND, ENGLANDFORESTPARK, WASHINGTON8) Be a Local Economy Hero. The old phrase “use or lose it” applies especially to neighborhood businesses. LIVING IN A NEIGHBORHOOD—even the swankest one—with no grocery, coffeeshop or other businesses is like wearing a nice new suit of clothes without shoes. In many small towns, an ice cream shop is the hot spot for teenagers, while other folks in the community wander down to the gas station to drink pop and tell stories. These places may not sound like your idea of an exciting time but to the people who live there, such businesses are as important as sidewalk cafes are to Parisians. IN OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI, MANYFOLKSCREDIT A BOOKSTOREWITHHELPINGHEALTHECITY’S PRIDE after a vicious anti- civil rights riot erupted in the 1. They also cooperate on advertising campaigns, special neighborhood events, shared parking facilities, and other improvements. IN HARTLAND, A VILLAGE IN THEDEVONCOUNTRYSIDE OF ENGLAND, a community school took over management of the Happy Pear greengrocer and market when it was about to close. This is just one example of a growing number of community initiatives to preserve and promote essential local shops. It is now community- owned with any profits going back to village itself. IN THESEATTLESUBURB OF FORESTPARK, RESIDENTSRALLIEDAROUND A UNIQUE, REDEVOPEDMALL that was envisioned as a community center as much as a retail outlet. Yet below the surface, not visible in government statistics or a quick drive through its rundown streets, there was ample reason for hope. They formed partnerships with government agencies, non profit organizations and businesses, such as United Parcel Service, which reserved 5. Grand Boulevard residents needing to get on their feet. An effective anti- crime initiative underway in many parts of the country is organizing groups walking the beat—just like the police used to do in the days before squad cars. Indeed, some cities are bringing back cops on the beat, or on bicycles, who patrol the streets to prevent crimes rather than just answering calls once crimes have been committed. But police can’t be everywhere you need them. They rarely stopped a crime in action, and never pursued confrontations with young gang members or criminals, but did notify the local police precinct by cell phone whenever they saw something suspicious underway. The success of the Lyndale Walkers soon inspired similar efforts in other communities across Minneapolis affected by crime. Reverend Carly Swirtz, leader of the 1. Avenue Block Club in the low- income Phillips neighborhood, describes her experience. One of the best advantages of a patrol is getting to know your neighbors. You can learn a lot on those strolls! Many gun shots and police calls. Luther Krueger, one of the leaders of the Lyndale Walkers, notes that even neighborhoods with quite low crime rates are forming what they call stroll patrols, “ perhaps to take the edge off the usual impression of citizen patrols being people strictly looking for crooks or crimes.”Nolan Venkatrathnam, a patrol leader in the Stevens Square Loring Heights neighborhood, which does contend with crime problems, notes that one of their notable successes came when, “a patrol team retrieved a woman from her apartment that was filling up with smoke from a frying pan left on the stove. These artists, of course, painted their surroundings, and now the whole world has a picture of this once out- of- the- way neighborhood in its mind. It’s fun to seek out how your place in the world has been depicted by artists, writers, filmmakers or musicians.
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