Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center Community Engagement and Revitalization

 描述(申请人提供)：从制造业经济向严重依赖服务和技术的经济转型，导致主要依赖其工业基础的社区人口减少和贫困。随之而来的枯萎和忽视，加上高中或高中以下教育程度的青年缺乏机会，导致许多受影响城市的青年暴力发生率上升。密歇根青少年暴力预防中心(MI-YVPC)将研究改善空置物业对密歇根州弗林特、俄亥俄州扬斯敦和新泽西州卡姆登年轻人中的暴力、财产犯罪和故意伤害的影响。我们将比较社区和青年参与的空置物业维护和改善方法与由社区外的承包商实施的类似维护。我们将安排物业接受社区参与或专业维修，并将这两种条件的影响与未得到改善的空置土地进行比较。我们还将进行一项分三个阶段的实施研究，包括记录新泽西州卡姆登的绿化活动的发展，并对全国100多个实施绿化计划的社区进行调查，了解他们在创建计划和吸引年轻人参与过程中的经验和教训。该中心的目标是：1)在弗林特和扬斯敦实施和评估社区层面的战略，并分析物理环境的变化与10-24岁青少年暴力之间的关系；2)测试绿化的替代方法，通过弗林特和扬斯敦的代际合作，将专业维护与青年参与在警察事件、青年故意伤害、附近财产的宗地评估和居民调查回应方面进行对比；3)记录社区为实施新泽西州卡姆登的绿化计划所做的准备过程和能力需求；4)找出促进或阻碍社区和青年参与的绿化计划发展的经验教训，并通过各种场所向当地、州和全国受众传播我们的研究结果，包括免费提供的实施指南。MI-YVPC是密歇根大学、宾夕法尼亚大学、罗格斯大学、社区进步中心以及每个城市的土地银行、经济发展组织、卫生部门、医院、警察局和社区组织之间的合作伙伴关系。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The transformation from a manufacturing economy to one based heavily on services and technology has resulted in the depopulation and impoverishment of communities that have depended primarily on their industrial bases. Consequent blight and neglect, coupled with a lack of opportunities for youth with high school educations or less, have resulted in elevated rates of youth violence in many affected cities. The Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center (MI-YVPC) will study the effects of improving vacant properties on violence, property crimes and intentional injuries among youth in Flint, MI, Youngstown, OH and Camden, NJ. We will compare a community and youth-engaged approach to maintaining and improving vacant properties to similar maintenance implemented by contractors from outside the neighborhoods. We will assign properties to receive community-engaged or professional maintenance and compare the effects of these two conditions to vacant lots that are unimproved. We will also conduct a three-phased implementation study that will involve documenting the development of greening activities in Camden, NJ, and survey over 100 communities nationwide who have implemented greening programs about their experiences and lessons learned in creating their programs and engaging youth in the process. The aims of the Center are to: 1) implement and evaluate community-level strategies in Flint and Youngstown and analyze the relationship between changes in the physical environment and 10-24 year old youth violence; 2) test alternative approaches to greening, contrasting professional maintenance with youth engagement through intergenerational collaboration in Flint and Youngstown on police incidents, youth intentional injury, parcel assessment of nearby properties, and resident survey responses; 3) document the process of community readiness and capacity needs for implementation of a greening program in Camden, NJ; 4) identify lessons learned that facilitate or hinder development of community and youth engaged greening programs, and disseminate the results of our research to local, state, and national audiences through a wide variety of venues, including a freely available implementation guide. The MI-YVPC is a partnership among the University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, the Center for Community Progress, and land banks, economic development organizations, health departments, hospitals, police departments and community-based organizations in each city.