Lessons Learned From a Citywide Abandoned Housing Experiment

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings

The negative impact of vacant and abandoned housing in city neighborhoods is extreme, affecting health and quality of life, promoting violence, and leading to further abandonment. One approach to addressing abandoned housing is to intervene with low-cost interventions that provide a visual sense of ownership. We tested whether a low-cost remediation of abandoned and vacant houses or a trash cleanup intervention would make a noticeable difference in the levels of nearby disrepair, disorder, and public safety. The abandoned housing remediation and trash cleanup interventions were a test of compliance with municipal ordinances. We used an experimental design to test the causal effects of the ordinances and because the scale of abandonment was too large to provide treatment to all abandoned houses in the city. We used systematic social observation methods to rate changes in disrepair, disorder, and litter at housing sites and on the city blocks they were located and police-reported data on gun violence and illegal substance use. Our experimental design allowed us to see whether observed disrepair, disorder, and public safety improved after working windows and doors were installed on abandoned houses compared with a trash cleanup around properties or a no-intervention control condition. Our results showed significant changes in observed disrepair, disorder, and gun violence and illustrate the benefits of experimental evaluations of place-based changes to the built environment.

Takeaway for practice

Improving compliance with ordinances to remediate abandoned housing can make a noticeable difference in disrepair in neighborhoods and contribute to improved public safety. We illustrate how planners can use field experiments in partnership with city agencies, nonprofit community groups, and local universities to discover novel approaches to advance place-based changes to the built environment that can help economically disadvantaged communities abate problems of physical disorder.

Keywords:

• abandoned housing
• concentrated disadvantage
• disorder
• experiment
• reinvestment
• zoning ordinances

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author (JM). The data are not publicly available because they contain information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2022.2128855

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John MacDonald

JOHN MACDONALD ([email protected]) is a professor in the Departments of Criminology and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ahuva Jacobowitz

AHUVA JACOBOWITZ ([email protected]) is a PhD candidate in epidemiology in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

Jason Gravel

JASON GRAVEL ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University.

Mitchell Smith

MITCHELL SMITH ([email protected]) is a PhD candidate in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University.

Robert Stokes

ROBERT STOKES ([email protected]) is a professor in the Department of Public Administration at California State University, San Bernardino.

Vicky Tam

VICKY TAM ([email protected]) is a senior GIS analyst in the Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Eugenia South

EUGENIA SOUTH ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Charles Branas

CHARLES BRANAS ([email protected]) is a professor of Epidemiology in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.