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Vacant and blighted urban land is a widespread and potentially risky environmental condition encountered by millions of people on a daily basis. About 15% of the land in US cities is deemed vacant or abandoned, an area roughly the size of Switzerland. In a citywide cluster randomized controlled trial, we investigated the effects of standardized, reproducible interventions that restore vacant land on the commission of violence, crime, and the perceptions of fear and safety. Quantitative and ethnographic analyses were included in a mixed-methods approach to more fully test and explicate our findings. A total of 541 randomly sampled vacant lots were randomly assigned into treatment and control study arms; outcomes from police and 445 randomly sampled participants were analyzed over a 38-month study period. Participants living near treated vacant lots reported significantly reduced perceptions of crime (-36.8%, P < 0.05), vandalism (-39.3%, P < 0.05), and safety concerns when going outside their homes (-57.8%, P < 0.05), as well as significantly increased use of outside spaces for relaxing and socializing (75.7%, P < 0.01). Significant reductions in crime overall (-13.3%, P < 0.01), gun violence (-29.1%, P < 0.001), burglary (-21.9%, P < 0.001), and nuisances (-30.3%, P < 0.05) were also found after the treatment of vacant lots in neighborhoods below the poverty line. Blighted and vacant urban land affects people's perceptions of safety, and their actual, physical safety. Restoration of this land can be an effective and scalable infrastructure intervention for gun violence, crime, and fear in urban neighborhoods.

Youth living in areas with high concentrations of vacant properties may be at particular risk for poor health outcomes given the associations between deteriorated vacant properties, poor mental health, and community violence. Vacant lot greening has emerged as a key strategy to mitigate the harms of deteriorated properties. Youth engagement in greening has documented benefits for youth, yet few organizations responsible for managing vacant properties currently engage youth. Further, few researchers have examined the best practices that organizations can employ to effectively engage youth in greening programs. The purpose of this study was to understand how high functioning vacant land management organizations with robust youth engagement capabilities engage youth in their greening work. Based on in‐depth interviews with staff from vacant land management organizations, we explored three research questions: (1) what are their identified best practices for youth engagement?; (2) what are the major challenges that impede their youth engagement work?; (3) what solutions are these organizations employing to address these challenges? Findings from this study emphasize the important themes of engaging youth in vacant lot greening in areas of planning, leadership, and decision‐making. Youth engagement in vacant lot greening may be a key mechanism for preventing violence through cultivating youth empowerment and development. Highlights: Youth engagement in greening may be a key mechanism for preventing violence.Valuing of youth driven spaces and cultivating youth leadership is supported by empowerment theory.Examples of how organizations engage youth to address concentrated vacancy and neighborhood decline are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have documented that vacant lot greening can reduce community‐level crime and violence. Busy Streets Theory (BST) suggests that residents who are involved in the greening process can help to improve physical environments and build social connections that deter crime and violence. Yet few researchers have explored how community engagement in the greening process may affect crime and violence outcomes. We applied BST to test the effects of community‐engaged vacant lot greening compared to vacant lots that received either professional mowing or no treatment, on the density of violent crime around study lots. Using mixed effects regression models, we analyzed trends in violent crime density over the summer months from 2016 to 2018 at 2102 street segments in Youngstown, OH. These street segments fell within 150 meters of an intervention parcel that was classified as one of three conditions: community‐engaged maintenance, professional mowing, or no treatment (control). We found that street segments in areas receiving community‐engaged maintenance or professional mowing experienced greater declines in violent crime density than street segments in areas receiving no treatment, and more decline occurred in the community‐engaged condition compared to the professional mow condition. Our findings support BST and suggest that community‐engaged greening of vacant lots in postindustrial cities with a concentrated vacancy can reduce crime and violence. Highlights: Greening of vacant lots is associated with decreases in violent crime.Community‐engaged greening is associated with a greater decrease in crime than professional mowing.Community‐engaged greening of vacant lots in cities can reduce violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have demonstrated that collective efficacy is associated with positive health outcomes, lower crime, and violence in urban communities, and residents' emotional connection to their community. Remediation of blighted properties has been theoretically linked to increases in collective efficacy. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of blighted property remediation on city non‐emergency 311 calls for public incivilities and deterioration, as potential markers of collective efficacy. We used a quasi‐experimental design to test whether 311 calls for service changed around remediated vacant lots in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, many of which were left vacant after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In six city neighborhoods eligible for blighted property remediation as part of a city program, 203 treated vacant lots were matched 1:3 without replacement to control lots that were eligible for but did not receive treatment. This yielded a total of 812 vacant lots partitioned within 48 months, or 38,976 lot‐months. Controls were in the same New Orleans neighborhoods as their matched treatment lots but were at least 250 feet away to minimize contamination. Overall difference‐in‐differences models detected postintervention declines in calls related to dumping and garbage, and slight but mostly non‐significant changes in calls between intervention and control lots in all but calls for dumping and vehicles. Blighted property remediation may have an impact on dumping and garbage, which is important. Despite being geographically specific, low‐cost and longitudinal, the nature of 311 calls and structural and historic factors at play in both the concentration of vacant properties in communities and residents' willingness to call must be considered. Further analyses of changes in 311 data and additional qualitative inquiry are warranted to more fully determine the utility of these data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmaintained vacant land in urban areas is associated with a number of negative outcomes for residents of urban areas, including mental and physical health, safety, and quality of life. Community programs which promote land parcel maintenance in urban neighborhoods have been found to reverse some of the effects that unmaintained land has on nearby residents. We explored how land parcel maintenance is associated with mental health outcomes using data collected in Flint, MI in 2017–2018. Trained observers assessed the maintenance of approximately 7200 land parcels and surveyed 691 residents (57% Female, 53% Black, M age = 51). We aggregated resident and parcel rating data to 463 street segments and compared three structural equation models (SEM) to estimate the mediating effects of fear of crime on the association of parcel qualities on mental distress for residents. We found that fear of crime mediated the association between parcel maintenance values and mental distress indicating that poor maintenance predicted more fear of crime which was associated with mental distress. Our findings add to our understanding about the mechanism by which vacant lot improvements may operate to enhance psychological well‐being of residents who live on streets with vacant and unkept lots. High Lights: Land parcel greening is associated with positive outcomes for urban neighborhoods.Neighborhoods with greater parcel maintenance also had less fear of crime and less mental distress.Community greening may improve mental health outcomes through decreasing fear of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in outdoor recreation can positively contribute to physical and emotional well-being. However, questions remain regarding the most effective way to implement programs that promote childhood engagement in outdoor recreation. Using seven years of data, we explored factors driving visitation to trailheads that offer self-guided materials for children at parks and recreation facilities of the Kids in Parks program. We evaluated the demographic, managerial, and physical predictors of visitation to the 115 trails included in the program. Of 769 visitors who made at least one return visit to a TRACK Trail, 305 (39.7%) returned to the same trail, 675 (87.8%) returned to a different trail, and 211 (27.4%) did both. Using multiple linear regression, we found that repeat visits to any trail and new trails increased (p<0.01) when the trail was in a state park or a national forest. Return visits to new trails were more likely to take place at locations without a visitor center, and at locations that were located farther away from visitors' homes. Visitors who made any return trail visits came from areas with significantly higher unemployment rates, compared to visitors who did not make repeat visits. The results of this study have broad applications in creating inclusive recreation opportunities for all residents, and guiding communities as they make management decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]