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From Broken Windows to Perceived Routine Activities: Examining Impacts of Environmental Interventions on Perceived Safety of Urban Alleys

In high-density cities around the world, alleys are common but neglected spaces that are perceived as unsafe. While cities have invested resources in environmental interventions to improve safety in urban allies, it is not clear how these interventions impact perceived safety. We review two importan...

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Autores principales: Jiang, Bin, Mak, Cecilia Nga Sze, Zhong, Hua, Larsen, Linda, Webster, Christopher John
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6290784/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30568620
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02450
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author Jiang, Bin
Mak, Cecilia Nga Sze
Zhong, Hua
Larsen, Linda
Webster, Christopher John
author_facet Jiang, Bin
Mak, Cecilia Nga Sze
Zhong, Hua
Larsen, Linda
Webster, Christopher John
author_sort Jiang, Bin
collection PubMed
description In high-density cities around the world, alleys are common but neglected spaces that are perceived as unsafe. While cities have invested resources in environmental interventions to improve safety in urban allies, it is not clear how these interventions impact perceived safety. We review two important criminology theories that discuss the environmental and social factors that lead to crime: the Broken Windows Theory and the Routine Activity Theory. We argue that these theories can also be used to explain safety perceptions of urban environments, and then develop urban alley interventions based on these theories. We test people's perceived safety of these interventions through a photograph survey. Results show that all interventions yielded higher perceived safety than existing alley scenes. Interventions based on the Broken Windows Theory (cleaning or vegetation interventions) yielded only modest improvements in perceived safety, while interventions based on the Routine Activity Theory (urban function interventions) yielded higher ratings. Our findings question the dominant use of the Broken Windows Theory in environmental interventions to promote perceived safety and argue for a more effective approach: urban function interventions inspired by the Routine Activity Theory.
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spelling pubmed-62907842018-12-19 From Broken Windows to Perceived Routine Activities: Examining Impacts of Environmental Interventions on Perceived Safety of Urban Alleys Jiang, Bin Mak, Cecilia Nga Sze Zhong, Hua Larsen, Linda Webster, Christopher John Front Psychol Psychology In high-density cities around the world, alleys are common but neglected spaces that are perceived as unsafe. While cities have invested resources in environmental interventions to improve safety in urban allies, it is not clear how these interventions impact perceived safety. We review two important criminology theories that discuss the environmental and social factors that lead to crime: the Broken Windows Theory and the Routine Activity Theory. We argue that these theories can also be used to explain safety perceptions of urban environments, and then develop urban alley interventions based on these theories. We test people's perceived safety of these interventions through a photograph survey. Results show that all interventions yielded higher perceived safety than existing alley scenes. Interventions based on the Broken Windows Theory (cleaning or vegetation interventions) yielded only modest improvements in perceived safety, while interventions based on the Routine Activity Theory (urban function interventions) yielded higher ratings. Our findings question the dominant use of the Broken Windows Theory in environmental interventions to promote perceived safety and argue for a more effective approach: urban function interventions inspired by the Routine Activity Theory. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-12-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6290784/ /pubmed/30568620 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02450 Text en Copyright © 2018 Jiang, Mak, Zhong, Larsen and Webster. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Jiang, Bin
Mak, Cecilia Nga Sze
Zhong, Hua
Larsen, Linda
Webster, Christopher John
From Broken Windows to Perceived Routine Activities: Examining Impacts of Environmental Interventions on Perceived Safety of Urban Alleys
title From Broken Windows to Perceived Routine Activities: Examining Impacts of Environmental Interventions on Perceived Safety of Urban Alleys
title_full From Broken Windows to Perceived Routine Activities: Examining Impacts of Environmental Interventions on Perceived Safety of Urban Alleys
title_fullStr From Broken Windows to Perceived Routine Activities: Examining Impacts of Environmental Interventions on Perceived Safety of Urban Alleys
title_full_unstemmed From Broken Windows to Perceived Routine Activities: Examining Impacts of Environmental Interventions on Perceived Safety of Urban Alleys
title_short From Broken Windows to Perceived Routine Activities: Examining Impacts of Environmental Interventions on Perceived Safety of Urban Alleys
title_sort from broken windows to perceived routine activities: examining impacts of environmental interventions on perceived safety of urban alleys
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6290784/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30568620
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02450
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