An Article from THE SOUTH ETOBICOKE NEWS FOR JULY
- ?Its. summertime. Let’s think about the outside, something cool and natural. Let’s be positive and talk about how we, as individuals, can reduce crime, free up our streets and contribute to the community while helping ourselves.??We all want free and safe streets.??We can sit and complain about our safety.??The authorities respond by sending in more police. Then we complain we feel like an occupied country.??
- The safe street topic seems appropriate for the season.??I enjoy gardening.??So, what you ask???How does that relate to safe streets and law-enforcement.???Patience, read on.
- In order to protect our democracy, we have a duty to the public as much as our government has to us, to assist in the maintenance of Peace, Order and Good Government.??Without public assistance we cannot expect the police to do the job all by themselves. Drug dealers in our streets are usually known in a community before the police hear about them.???They thrive because some of us choose to look the other way.??The dealer often controls neighbourhoods through forms or terrorism and social assistance. They offer jobs to the??unemployable, money to the vulnerable and even to the local Church (Mexico, Italy, etc).??We don’t need a community of spies but we need people on the streets, good people, who outnumber the bad. We need to take the streets back.??Instead of asking the police to do all the work and flood the community with officers making locals feel like an occupied nation, the residents need to fill the streets. Communities need to work together as neighbours to formulate ideas and ask the police to assist.??It’s up the locals to develop feasible plans.??It’s like those old black and white movies where the town rises up to expel the gangsters or bikers lead by Marlon Brando, who ride into the village to take it over.??It’s like an intensive “Neighbourhood Watch”.??I know it’s difficult but we can all do it with the help of the Local politicians and police.
- We all have this duty but people who are fortunate enough to own houses have a special opportunity to protect our streets.??Studies from New York City showed that a clean, fresh and green neighbourhoods have lower crime rates than others. ‘When a city’s trashy lots are cleaned up, residents’ mental health improves,’?Washington Post ,August 17, 2018 reported?“Neighborhoods where vacant lots were cleaned up experienced a 29 percent reduction in gun violence, 22 percent decrease in burglaries, and 30 percent drop in nuisances like noise complaints and illegal dumping. Residents living near those same spaces also reported feeling much safer post-remediation, with 58 percent having fewer security concerns when leaving their homes and more than three-quarters saying they significantly increased use of their outside spaces for relaxing and socializing— penntoday.upenn.edu/news.??Neighbourhood gentrification not developers gentrification is the remedy.
- I am a fan of the late Jane Jacobs, a famous American??writer for Urban Development who moved to Toronto and was instrumental in influencing city design during Mayor Crombie’s reign.??It was the plan of Toronto development that the waterfront was to be left open; rather, than build a wall of Miami styled apartments blocking our view of the water front. Her model was for people to develop their front yards as a sitting space and having small parkettes??wherever there is any available public space. Since then, we lost the battle of good planning. Toronto, who like Chicago at the time, had a magnificent waterfront for ready development.??We lost the competition years ago, after Crombie left and the politicians became revenue focused, building taxable facilities, highways; rather than public parks.??Sometimes higher taxes for public spaces can be a benefit.??Visit Chicago to see what I mean. We need to pressure our politicians like MPPs to develop small local funds for community enhancement. In Alberta, one of the cities will permit and help fund a community garden on some public areas – “Gorilla Gardening”
- One idea, Ms. Jacobs advanced was for people to use their front yards as a patio where you could sit and watch passersby and meet??neighbours.??I have attacked a photo of a front yard patio design as an example.??Let’s flood our streets with good guys and gardens.??Use your front yard for the community; rather than grass pastureland. A person sitting outside is as good as a security alarm and cheaper.
