Environmental Approaches to Making Healthier, Safer Communities

A community’s physical environment has a huge bearing on whether residents feel—and are—safe.

Equipped with a set of design principles, sometimes called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), people can intentionally shape their built environments to foster a sense of security, comfort, interest, and delight—and to discourage crime.

LISC Safety & Justice supports activities that hand the reins of this process to residents, whether they are providing input on the design of a new housing development or joining in a work party to beautify and reorient the entrance to a local community center. Local people know their neighborhoods best; they understand the intricate dynamics of how people move through and use community spaces.

One key advantage of an environmental approach to promoting safety and livability is that it doesn’t rely on heavy police presence and enforcement, or any type of coercion. Done right, it allows residents to steward common spaces and protect one another. 

For example, orienting windows to face a courtyard, park, or play space, cutting back overgrown shrubbery from a well-used path, and illuminating parking lots or bus shelters all promote “natural surveillance”—the ability of residents to literally look out for one another, without making a special effort. The increased risk of being observed is a natural and effective deterrent to crime. 

LISC Safety & Justice offers trainings that involve residents and other local stakeholders in applying these principles. Our approach to environmental design for health and safety also incorporates: 

• greening, which can discourage crime and creates cooler, healthier urban environments, a key feature of environmental justice for underserved communities; 
• new or renovated ballfields and other recreational facilities, because they offer opportunities for exercise and pro-social activities, especially for young people, and can raise a community’s pride of place; 
• mitigation and adaptive reuse of abandoned buildings and lots, disused spaces that often attract crime and certainly amplify residents’ fear of crime; and 
• creative placemaking, which engages community-minded artists and residents in projects that activate public spaces and lift up a neighborhood’s singular history and identity.