contraste y correlaciones de hipótesis

3.3.1 “BROKEN WINDOWS,”DISORDER, AND COMMUNITY COHESION

One of the prime policy issues associated with vacant and abandoned lots is the effect on immediate surroundings. Just as vacant and abandoned lots can have devastating effects upon the value of neighboring properties, they can also have detrimental effects upon their surrounding community’s cohesiveness and the appearance of safety or civility within a neighborhood. One explanation for the way in which derelict appearances can contribute to actual dereliction can be found in Zimbardo’s 1968 study of anonymity and destruction that gave rise to the term “Broken Windows.”

Zimbardo’s study, part of a larger research agenda into deindividuation, looked into vandalism and the conditions associated with acts of vandalism by “abandoning”

(under continuous observation) cars on streets near Stanford University and New York University’s Bronx Campus. Both cars had license plates removed and hoods raised, acting as “releaser signals” to draw attention and indicate the “dead” status of the car (Zimbardo, 1969, p. 285). At this time, community life in the Bronx was characterized by “its anonymity, the frequency with which cars are abandoned and things are stolen or broken, the past experience of ‘no one caring’.” In contrast, Palo Alto (home to Stanford University), was, as it remains today, an upper-class community (Wilson &

Kelling, 1982, p. 31). In less than three days, the automobile “abandoned” in the Bronx was a battered shell, destroyed in 23 separate incidents of destruction as passersby stripped and battered the car. Demonstrating both the ingenuity of children as well as their delight in danger, five eight-year-olds used the car as a private playground, crawling around in it before smashing the windows. Destruction occurred primarily during the daytime. Individuals occasionally stopped to chat while the vandals worked.

The looting of the car occurred first, largely instigated by well-dressed adults “who would under other circumstances be mistaken for mature, responsible citizens demanding more law and order.” After anything of worth had been stripped, teenagers

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and youngsters stepped in with their acts of random destruction (Zimbardo, 1969, p.

290).

In direct contrast, the car “abandoned” in Palo Alto emerged after five days untouched, except where a passerby had lowered the hood when it began to rain. The car was then “abandoned” directly on the campus of Stanford University for another seven days, without incident. In fact, when the car was moved from the street to the Stanford campus, three residents called the police to say that the car was being stolen.

Understanding that the “releaser signal” that worked in the Bronx (the hood up on an unaccompanied car) would not work similarly in the Stanford environment, Zimbardo and two graduate students provided a stronger releaser signal by taking a sledgehammer to the car. Observers gathered around the scene of destruction, cheering it on, joining in to flip the car on its top. Subsequently, the only spontaneous attack to happen occurred after midnight when three students began to beat on the car with pipes under the cover of darkness.

Lessons learned from this study have implications for planning policies centered on vacant and abandoned lots in shrinking cities. Zimbardo’s findings indicate that the combination of anonymity (which was found then in the Bronx) and “minimal releaser cues” can give rise to acts of destructive vandalism. Beyond vandalism, however, it is not impossible to imagine that the combination of anonymity and releaser cues which are abundant in depopulated and deteriorating neighborhoods could combine to destroy the “fabric of social norms which must regulate all communal life”

(Zimbardo, 1969, p. 292).

In developing the theory of “Broken Windows,” Wilson and Kelling distill Zimbardo’s findings down to their essence and then extrapolate the effect upon promoting criminal behavior. They assert that “untended property becomes fair game for people out for fun or plunder and even for people who ordinarily would not dream of doing such things and who probably consider themselves law-abiding” such that

“’untended’ behavior also leads to the breakdown of community controls” (1982, p.

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31). While Wilson and Kelling’s focus is on describing the way that untended behavior will eventually lead to an increase in crime, what is important for this research are the intermediate steps: a breakdown in community controls (displayed through both social and physical disorder) leading to a perception of an increase in crime and a subsequent decrease in community cohesion.

In a discussion on the effects of incivility on social disorder and fear, Hunter describes the concept of civility, illustrating how untended property could upset a very delicate balance:

The continuing movement between personal and collective rights and obligations, the delicate balance between private and public claims is seen to be routinely problematic. The forms and stages of this process are most clearly highlighted by their breach, when expectations are not met, claims and counterclaims come into conflict, and the public order must be renegotiated (1978, p. 4).

As unmaintained vacant and abandoned lots proliferate in a neighborhood, the stability of a neighborhood is threatened. Unless stabilizing forces act to restore balance (through the housing market and actions of interested individuals and groups), the neighborhood will begin to decline (Skogan, 1987). These lots come to represent tangible evidence of physical incivility/disorder taking place as the neighborhood’s social order shifts away from the status quo ante and established injunctive (the common disapproval of certain types of behavior) and descriptive (perception of common behavior) norms to some new balance between private and public, rights and responsibilities (Keizer, Lindenberg, & Steg, 2008). This type of physical disorder, represented by untended yards, dumping, and deteriorating buildings, gives rise to either social incivility/disorder, represented by squatters and anti-social behavior or the appearance of social disorder. To a resident or visitor, these instances of incivility (where descriptive and injunctive norms conflict) indicate both that co-residents or landlords are no longer concerned with respecting the pre-existing social order as well as the inability of local agents of public order, such as the police, to intervene (Taylor, Shumaker, & Gottfredson, 1985).

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Figure 3.3: Relationship between Physical/Social Disorder and Community Cohesion

Source: Adapted from (Hunter, 1978; Skogan, 1987; Perkins & Taylor, 1996; Bratton &

Kelling, 2006) and Modified by Author

Wilson and Kelling are very careful to note that “it is not inevitable that serious crime will flourish or violent attacks on strangers will occur” as a result of social and physical disorder, but that many neighborhood residents or visitors will think that it is increasing due to perceived cues (1982, p. 31). As a result, they will begin to withdraw both physically and psychologically from communal life, from fear of crime or the perception of crime, visiting neighbors and neighborhood institutions less often, and spending less time in the street or on the sidewalks. For most residents, “the neighborhood will cease to exist except for a few reliable friends whom they arrange to meet” (Wilson & Kelling, 1982, p. 31). As illustrated in Figure 3.3, as the

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neighborhood community deteriorates, the informal social processes which had regulated public behavior decline and give leeway for a rise in crime and anti-social behavior (including blighting conditions such as vacant lots). There is, subsequently, less organizational and mobilizing capacity of the neighborhood residents to combat these conditions (Skogan, 1986).

3.3.2 PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH IMPLICATIONS OF VACANT LOTS

Vacant and abandoned lots and homes can also have deleterious effects on the physical and mental health of neighboring residents. In a 2011 study of residents of two Philadelphia neighborhoods with significant numbers of vacant land parcels², qualitative interviews revealed the impact of vacant parcels on individual’s well-being, physical health, and mental health (Garvin, Branas, Keddem, Sellman, & Cannuscio, 2012). The study of inner-city residents in a shrinking United States city found that distinct effects of vacant lots were seen in three separate domains of public health:

community well-being, physical health, and mental health. They affected community well-being adversely by undermining residents’ ongoing efforts to improve the external image of a community, contributing to a sense of futility in terms of personal/community agency over the immediate environment, increasing fractures and disagreements between neighbors over responsibilities, appearing to attract crime and criminal behavior, and decreasing the value of homes and preventing new economic investment.

The impacts of vacant lots on physical health are largely related to “the way in which they undermine” it through “unsanitary conditions and the potential for injury”

related to the trash-dumping and arson that are endemic on these properties (Garvin,

2 The Garvin et al. study conflates vacant/abandoned lots with vacant/abandoned buildings, calling them both “vacant parcels.” This is far from unusual. While the study undertaken in this research project specifically focuses on vacant lots without buildings, much previous research on the topic treats the two as equal situations for the purpose of study. See also (Accordino & Johnson, 2000) in which houses, apartments, commercial/industrial buildings, and lots are considered “vacant and abandoned property” per a United States Government Accountability Office definition of said property as “a building or lot that has been vacant for two years or more” (p. 301).

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Branas, Keddem, Sellman, & Cannuscio, 2012, p. 7). Survey respondents worried that they were in danger of being physical harmed through proximity to illegal trash dumps, the wild animals that were drawn to these dumps, illicit activities (and their perpetrators) in abandoned homes, and fears of fires being started in these spaces.

Mental health issues associated with vacant and abandoned lots (and homes) were discovered to be largely the result of long-term negative emotions. These emotions are related to long-term living in proximity to illicit trash dumps, anxiety about children’s interactions with dangerous neighborhood environmental conditions, stigma associated with living in a poorly perceived neighborhood, and defeat related to their lack of personal/community agency (Garvin, Branas, Keddem, Sellman, &

Cannuscio, 2012). One interesting finding amongst these multiple harmful effects of vacancy was the degree to which study respondents were willing and interested in taking the initiative with appropriate support from the city to address vacancy and abandonment. Some respondents were already involved in caring for these vacant lots and “described satisfaction about using this work to exert a degree of social control over the neighborhood” (Garvin, Branas, Keddem, Sellman, & Cannuscio, 2012, p.

421). As noted above, increased social control from within the community is one step that can be taken to short-circuit the cycle of disorder, crime, and incivility.

The following image, Figure 3.4, adapted from Cohen et al., 2003, illustrates the relationships among physical structures, including vacant lots, social structures, and the health of neighborhood residents. Mediated through both situational opportunities and exposures as well as health behaviors, the impacts can be detrimental to the well-being of residents already compromised by living in depopulated inner-city locations.

Wallace explains in a research paper on the public health effects of “planned shrinkage”

in the Bronx in the 1970s that the effects of destruction of community upon a disadvantaged population that is eerily relevant for discussion of today’s shrinking cities:

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With destruction of housing and community there is concomitant intensification of a nexus of deviant behavior including (but not limited to) homicide, suicide and substance abuse… This nexus is embedded in conditions of preexisting poverty and overcrowding whose impacts have been exacerbated by the loss of community and of social networks associated with severe out-migration…

(1990, p. 801).

Figure 3.4: Relationships between Physical/Social Structures and Public Health Outcomes

Source: Adapted from (Cohen, et al., 2003)

A 2007 study completed in Flint, Michigan examined the causal effects of residential/commercial deterioration upon depressive symptoms and stress. Undertaken in one of the U.S. cities most devastated by post-industrial population loss, it clearly demonstrated the effects of a blighted built environment upon the mental health of residents, as mediated by both individual perceptions (of crime) as well as social behaviors (including social contact and capital within the immediate neighborhood).

Figure 3.5 illustrates these relationships. As their neighborhood in Flint deteriorated

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physically, it also deteriorated socially. This situation led to a decrease in social capital, an increase in fear of crime, both leading to decreasing neighborhood satisfaction, and increasing self-diagnosed perceptions of depression and stress (Kruger, Reischl, &

Gee, 2007).

Figure 3.5: Relationships between Neighborhood Deterioration and Mental Health Outcomes

Source: Adapted from (Kruger, Reischl, & Gee, 2007)

Vacant lots and neighborhood deterioration have thus both been shown to lead to significant public health challenges for residents living in these blighted areas. While there is no direct causal relationship between vacant lots and neighborhood deterioration, it is mediated in both of these studies by a loss of community, social networks, neighborhood social contact, and neighborhood social capital. These findings suggest that the physical stabilization of neighborhoods may not only short-circuit the cycle of disorder, crime, and incivility discussed earlier, it may actually help to improve health outcomes for neighborhood residents.