How community gardens and block associations help stem urban violence

How community gardens and block associations help stem urban violence

Last summer, this small garden also became a testing ground for an experiment in crime prevention. Thanks to the Chicago Safe and Peaceful Communities Fund, a “rapid-response” charitable initiative giving seed money to communities suffering disproportionately from crime, the garden received a small stipend to run a Saturday program for kids, Planting and Playing Summer Garden Arts. One of 121 small grants, the funds provided an entire summer of Saturday activities for neighborhood kids.

Community gardens, and other neighborhood-level organizations like block clubs and arts groups, aren’t typically viewed as direct solutions to violence. Decades of ”broken window” policing persuaded many cities to adopt top-down crime-prevention plans focused on punishing small offenses (recent research, however, indicates that this strategy had the opposite effect).

▻https://www.curbed.com/2018/2/27/17058094/chicago-crime-neighborhood-group-community
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