Community Security and Livability

Also known as Citizens On Patrol (COPs), Neighborhood watch programs represent a means that many communities utilize to make their streets safer. These groups work directly with police and sheriffs' departments by patrolling streets and reporting criminal activity and other situations requiring attention. Although not a singular solution to crime, they have helped to reduce crime rates in many communities and have raised standards of living.

Among the chief concerns that a family or individual makes in choosing a neighborhood to live is the security of the neighborhood. Many different means exist to safeguard the home, but they have no influence when one leaves the bounds of his/her home and ventures into the outside world's streets.

Many communities have responded to rising crime levels or the perception of rising crime levels by erecting walls around their neighborhoods and controlling access by gates. The trend toward gated communities has become increasingly popular. However, the debate over whether gated communities benefit or detract from communities has supporters on both sides.

Many communities have embraced pedestrian mobility as an alternative to past building practices that favor automobiles. Reasons for this shift include a recognition that dependency on automobiles leads to an unsustainable future or that automobile-oriented environments engender dangerous conditions to both motorists and pedestrians and are generally bereft of aesthetics.

The realm of traffic control encompasses various means of “calming” traffic so that it moves more slowly. Many communities find implementation of these means desirable and the frequency of implementing measures that fall within this rubric has increased tremendously over the last ten to twenty years.