Transforming vacant lots: Investigating an alternative approach to reducing fear of crime

- Incorporating the principles of CPTED into urban greening may provide added value with regard to reducing fear of crime.
- Participants who viewed a CPTED lot had, on average, lower levels of fear of crime than all other participants.
- Areas of improvement include increasing external validity, identifying mechanisms and enhancing simulation techniques.

This preliminary study considers whether incorporating fundamental standards of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) into traditional urban greening practices of vacant lots might provide added value with regard to fear of crime. An experiment (N = 523) was conducted using a sample of undergraduate students. Participants were asked to report their level of fear of crime in regard to one of three randomly assigned computer-adjusted images: 1) A disorderly lot; 2) A traditional greened lot; and 3) A CPTED lot. Using ordinary least squares regression, this study found that, on average, participants who viewed a CPTED lot had statistically (p < 0.05) lower levels of fear of crime than participants who viewed either the disorderly or greened lot conditions. The results of this study are promising, yet preliminary. Future research on this topic should focus on ways to increase external validity, identify underlying mechanisms and develop more sophisticated techniques to simulate lot conditions.