Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center Community Engagement and Revitalization

 描述（由申请人提供）：从制造业经济转变为一个严重依赖服务和技术的经济，导致了主要依赖工业基础的社区的人口减少和贫困。社区的破坏和忽视，加上高中以下教育的青年缺乏机会，导致许多受影响城市的青年暴力发生率上升。密歇根州青年暴力预防中心（MI-YVPC）将研究改善空置房产对弗林特，密歇根州，扬斯敦，俄亥俄州和新泽西州卡姆登青年中暴力，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方法来维护和改善空置物业，以类似的维护由承包商从社区以外实施。我们将指定物业接受社区参与或专业维修，并将这两种情况的影响与未经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，其中包括记录新泽西州卡姆登市绿化活动的发展情况，并调查全国100多个实施绿化计划的社区，了解他们在制定计划和吸引青年参与这一过程中的经验和教训。该中心的目标是：（1）在弗林特和扬斯敦执行和评估社区一级的战略，并分析物质环境的变化与10-24岁青年暴力之间的关系; 2）测试绿化的替代方法，通过在弗林特和扬斯敦就警察事件，青年故意伤害，附近物业的地块评估，和居民调查响应; 3）记录社区准备和能力需求的过程，以实施新泽西州卡姆登的绿化计划; 4）确定经验教训，促进或阻碍社区和青年参与绿化计划的发展，并传播我们的研究成果，以地方，国家，通过各种渠道，包括免费提供的实施指南，向各国和各国受众提供信息。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、警察部门和社区组织之间的伙伴关系。

 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.