safety concerns

I took this photo a few minutes before the melee broke out Sunday evening.  Three men were shot (none seriously wounded) after a larger fight erupted involving up to ten people.  

The issue that keeps surfacing with Victor Steinbrueck is crime: drug dealing, assault, robbery, rape. These are concerns everyone at all the meetings share about this place.

The question, it seems, is how to reclaim it.  

Several have cited the need for increased surveillance and a larger police presence.  Others have focused on the berms and lack of visibility within the park.  While others have mentioned the desire for more amenities and vendors.  While still others have said the problem isn't the park but rather its a larger socio-political problem that requires attention. 

While all these are factors, and that certainly the problem is bigger than Victor Steinbrueck Park, this is no reason to dismiss plans to make improvements to the site.  The two objectives are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, I would argue site and situation are inextricably linked.

 

Anyone with eyes can see Victor Steinbrueck could use some refurbishment.  The benches are rotting, plantings are sparse or non-existent, surfaces worn, lighting inadequate, corners reek of urine, etc. The whole place has a sort of 'stuck in the 70's faux 20's' feel to it. Besides the view, it's not terribly inviting. 

There's a theory/practice known as Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) that may be useful here.  It's a multi-disciplinary approach to deterring criminal behavior that has its roots in Jane Jacobs' ground-breaking work The Death and Life of Great American Cities.  In it she challenged the urban planner orthodoxy of 'progress' as it was practiced in the 60s, critiquing the mindset that placed precedence on car culture, suburban development, bland facades and empty streets.

Schlomo Angel was an early pioneer of CPTED and studied under noted planner Christopher Alexander. Angel's Ph.D. thesis, Discouraging Crime Through City Planning, (1968) was a study of street crime in Oakland, CA. In it he states "The physical environment can exert a direct influence on crime settings by delineating territories, reducing or increasing accessibility by the creation or elimination of boundaries and circulation networks, and by facilitating surveillanceby the citizenry and the police." He asserted that crime was inversely related to the level of activity on the street, and that the commercial strip environment was particularly vulnerable to crime because it thinned out activity, making it easier for individuals to commit street crime.

While Victor Steinbrueck Park doesn't totally ignore the principles of CPTED, there is room for improvement. Creating better sightlines would be one thing. Another would be inviting appropriately scaled vendors into the park (not huge tents & garish concession booths). Improved seating and lighting is another. In fact anything that can be done to nurture the precepts of natural surveillance, natural access control and natural territorial reinforcement might help the situation.