Crime

By Nadja Adolf

Simple steps provide major results.

Code enforcement is not even throughout the city; in some neighborhoods, cars and trash routinely occupy yards despite requests from the neighbors for enforcement. Code enforcement is more than a matter of cultural values or attractiveness in the eye of the beholder; studies by criminologists have shown that toleration of apparently "minor" code violations is associated with higher crime rates; conversely, when these "minor" issues are strictly enforced one finds that crime rates decline.

A British study (Chenery, S. Henshaw C., and K. Pease `Illegal Parking in Disabled Bays : A Means of Offender Targeting', Policing and Reducing Crime Briefing Note, 1/99, London : Home Office, 1999) found that approximately a quarter of vehicles parked illegally across a city were of interest to police for more serious crimes. People who ignore the rules of society are not likely to limit their violations of the rights of others to one specific class of offenses.

The city needs to find ways to encourage home ownership for lower income residents in the proposed redevelopment plan; there should be more emphasis on cottage developments of houses whose design and placement permits expansion and less emphasis on large pre-built townhouses and single-family houses. A small two bedroom expandable cottage house can be built for significantly less than $100,000 and two or more fit comfortably onto a 6,000 square foot lot.

The current plan appears to depend on concentrating low income residents in high-density housing in a corridor along Thornton Avenue; this is a recipe for an instant slum, where criminal predators will prey on other residents. A better plan is to place smaller developments throughout the city, and to build in such a way as to encourage home ownership for lower income residents. France has been leading the way in this; and has found that crime rates decline significantly when the residents of the old high-density housing projects are rehoused in smaller buildings around the city where they have their own yards and can buy their homes.