Urban planning and crime: the SeaTac Strip story
The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) has a great article Sordid, soulless no more on the way that urban planners have worked, and continue to work, to change the landscape to make it less inviting to criminals like Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer.
Two decades after the Green River slayings began, the strip in SeaTac is a different place. Some of Ridgway’s favorite haunts remain, but the scores of prostitutes who once thronged Pacific Highway South are almost gone, and the city’s per-capita rate of violent crime ranks among the lowest in the nation for communities surrounding international airports, said SeaTac Police Chief Scott Somers.
Changes in the landscape and streetscape are a key reason, SeaTac leaders say.
The results of SeaTac’s efforts show in crime statistics, he says. In 1996, police responded to 12,098 violent crimes, the majority of them along the strip. By 2003, the number had dropped to 9,916 - an 18 percent decrease, despite seven years of population growth.
Tacoma is using SeaTac’s techniques to help fight crime there, as well:
In 2002, Tacoma rewrote its land development code to require windows in new buildings in commercial areas, including Sixth Avenue, Hosmer Street and South Tacoma Way.
The idea is that clerks and customers inside a store should be able to see what’s going on outside. The code changes, for example, prohibit new buildings from having a blank wall facing the sidewalk and street.
