April 2009
In this Issue
New Housing on the Horizon
Residential Communities by Design
Limited-Equity Cooperative Creates Affordable Housing in DC
HUD Pursues Energy Efficiency Nationwide
In the next issue of ResearchWorks
Residential Communities by Design
A decade ago, HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research published Creating Defensible Space by architect Oscar Newman. This work reviews the defensible space concept and its application in the redesign of residential neighborhoods and housing complexes to foster greater safety and social capital. Newman's 30 years of research and experiences led to the conclusion that when responsibility for shared common areas is unclear, no one ensures that these spaces are decent, safe, and reflective of both shared values and pride of place. Even more compelling is the idea that the building type and physical layout of living spaces appear to be key determinants of a sense of ownership, regardless of whether residents own or rent. Too often, Newman found, residential designs prove detrimental to the kind of community that people really want.
Spaces in residential communities that are commonly shared to varying degrees include entrances to buildings, stairways, landings, hallways, elevators, front yards, sidewalks, surrounding grounds, parking lots, and streets. There is little doubt about who is responsible for and who controls the interior, the surrounding grounds, and the back yard of a single-family home. But the lines of responsibility and control are often less clear for families that live in walkup or garden apartments. Circulation areas inside a walkup that are shared — such as entryways, stairways, or land — are usually accessible to only a small number of neighbors who know and recognize one another, and might reach informal agreement about how to share their common area. However, walkups may be built at a density of 30–40 units per acre, and surrounding grounds are often adjacent to a public street and/or parking area and may be openly accessible to the public. Nonresidents have no interest in maintaining these common areas, nor are they aware of their contribution to the neighborhood’s overall quality of life as they cut through the grounds, litter, fail to clean up after their pets, raise noise levels, and/or loiter.
A sense of ownership regarding common areas is particularly notable by its absence in high rises, where there are large numbers of units. Newman used the example of a 15-story building inhabited by 195 families, in which all common areas were disassociated from any individual unit. The corridors on each floor were shared by 13 families and accessed from two sets of stairs and two public elevators. The exterior grounds, shared by all 195 families, were also accessible to outsiders.
Ownership control over areas around homes and surrounding public streets varies with the site plan. In a typical row-house development, for example, with the exception of streets and sidewalks, grounds belong to individual families. In some cases, the close proximity of each unit and its entry to the street incorporates the sidewalk into the sphere of influence of residents, and the family car parked at the end of the sidewalk reinforces this perception. Thus, some degree of ownership of this semipublic area is evident, and residents are often concerned about ensuring its safety. In contrast, high rise inhabitants feel little connection to the surrounding areas. Where no building entrances face the streets, the streets seem distant. Management maintains the grounds. Hired personnel provide security services. Sidewalks and streets are maintained by the city and monitored by police.
In illuminating these contrasts in building types and layouts, Newman explained that a "family's claim to a territory diminishes proportionally as the number of families who share that claim increases. The larger the number of those who share a territory, the less each individual feels rights to it" (p.17). When numerous people share an area and nonresidents have easy access, it's difficult to identify with the right to control how communal space is used. Newman further concluded: "The more complex and anonymous the housing environment, the more difficult it is for a code of behavior following societal norms to become established among residents" (p.26).
Creating Defensible Space
Facilitating a sense of "ownership" — or at least one of shared responsibility — among community residents through the medium of quality design can increase the probability that people will want and be able to protect their living space. The Five Oaks community in Dayton, Ohio is one case in which Newman helped put defensible space principles to work. This 70-year-old neighborhood, located between downtown and the suburbs, consisted of about 2,000 households in one- and two-family homes and some small apartment buildings. By the early 1990s, this urban community was experiencing heavy through-traffic, rising crime, an influx of drug dealing and prostitution, conversions of single-family homes to multifamily use, an exodus of middle-class property owners replaced by low-income minority renters, and general disinvestment. Thirty-five percent of its traffic volume was cutting through the neighborhood en route to destinations elsewhere, making it unsuitable for safe, quiet residential use.
Newman proposed the restructuring of streets to create mini-neighborhoods as a way of altering the look and function of the community, eliminating through-traffic, and changing the character of the unsafe streets to places where children could play and neighbors could interact. Five Oaks residents decided how to lay out the mini-neighborhoods, guided by the principles of defensible space. Thirty-five streets and 25 alleys were closed, and the existing residences were divided into 10 mini-neighborhoods. Two mini-neighborhoods housed the major schools and a hospital complex, while the remaining eight were primarily residential. Each mini-neighborhood contained between three and six streets with cul-de-sacs, and was defined by similarity in the size of the houses and lots, the materials used in construction, and whether they contained single- or multifamily buildings. Internal two-way arterial streets connected the mini-neighborhoods, but each had only one entrance marked by brick pillars bearing the Five Oaks logo, along with its own name.
This restructuring of the community visibly gave residents greater control and ownership of their environment. Their design approach was further reinforced by police actions to flush out the drug dealing and prostitution, stepped up property code enforcement, and encouragement of first-time homeownership. Within one year of the project's completion, cut-through traffic was reduced by 67 percent, overall traffic volume by 35 percent, and traffic accidents by 40 percent. The overall crime rate dropped by 26 percent and housing values rose by 15 percent. Owners were applying for and receiving city loans to pay for housing improvements. For the first time in many years, families with children were moving into the neighborhood, contributing to a 55-percent increase in housing sales.
Today, one only has to go to the Five Oaks Neighborhood website (www.fiveoaksdayton.com) to see that residents have retained their hard-won ability to safeguard their residential space. The website also features their monthly newsletter, provides information on how to join the Litter Patrol or work on the Safety & Security Committee, and allows visitors to follow their pursuit of historic status and to read about the Five Oaks 2009 Neighborhood Stabilization Plan.
Copies of Oscar Newman's Creating Defensible Space are available for a nominal fee from HUD USER’s Webstore at www.huduser.gov, or by calling HUD USER at 800.245.2691, option 1. The report is also online and can be downloaded for free at www.huduser.gov/publications/pubasst/defensib.html.
