"So, what is the point of public art? ” This question, posted online by Voice of San Diego's Kelly Bennett, came in response to the city of San Diego’s recent pull from public art funding; after its release on Twitter the post quickly turned viral. Responses to the post ranged from views of public art as superfluous and its place in the public sphere as luxury, to public art as necessary for community well-being, safety, and cohesiveness.
Many of us believe in the arts as integral to the livable community— but when measuring out our federal dollars, the arts are usually the first to go. But what if we could prove that in addition to instilling neighborhood pride and value in our public space, public art could actually serve as a deterrent for crime and violence?
Almost tantamount to repairing the broken window, a symbol for neighborhood deterioration as explained below in Wilson and Kelling’s The Broken Windows Theory (1), a piece of public art can act as a symbol for neighborhood revitalization; rendering community order and a sense of Jane Jacobs’ “eyes on the street” (2). Additionally, reader Lucas O’Conner says, "If done right, public art creates a sense of commonality for a community. It creates pride and ownership of the neighborhood, cohesion of purpose, and a starting point to join together to address larger issues, [creating] shared public space and experience."
And, what is "public art"? Public art is a professionally designed mural three stories high, a bicycle rack bent in the shape of an elephant, and a neighborhood's history slated on the train station walls. Public art can be almost anything; but, it must foremost serve the public, be reflective of its sense of place, and representative of the community for which it is created.
Through the lens of Partners for Livable Communities’ Culture Builds Communities agenda, which “aims to systematically place cultural assets within the portfolio of community development efforts,” the following will portray public art as a vehicle to: deter crime and fear, and promote a sense of community, creativity, and overall pride and engagement in public space. Just as reader Jason Everitt, analyst at the Center on Policy Initiatives said, "Art, though subjective, is believed to contribute to quality of life.”
A study conducted at the University of Bochum, Germany, Perceived Danger in Urban Public Space: The Impacts of Physical Features and Personal Factors(3), seeks an answer to the research question, “What are the most relevant factors influencing perceived danger in urban public space?” To determine the research study variables, over 120 students on the university campus were surveyed in 2001-2002. Results of the study conclude some main factors of the built environment which invoke corresponding feelings of fear or danger in public space: available light, disrepair of buildings and public works, amount of people, and entrapments or blockades such as high building walls or trees, blocked escapes, and curved paths or the inability to see ahead. The findings prove through quantitative results that a majority of students experience real feelings of fear or danger when a surrounding built environment contains one or all of these fear-provoking factors, even without any prior knowledge or confirmation of high crime rates.
Not many would be quick to claim that the source of fear when walking in a believed “dangerous” neighborhood could be rooted in high walls, dim lighting, or a crumbling sidewalk, rather than the more practical acts of felony. However, Wilson and Kelling explain in the Broken Windows Theory that one “broken window,” or mark of blight, leads only to more deterioration of both city infrastructure and social activity; or, that once there is one “window” broken, there can be ‘no harm’ to break another. The deterioration of the built environment, then, leads also to deterioration in social activity, or real crime and violence; thus, when one feels fear walking in an area with vacant buildings or broken windows, those elements become symbols for danger.
Wilson and Kelling state of those conducting the delinquencies, that “Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers, whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing.”
Such symbols of blight: torn sidewalks, empty lots, and vacant buildings, lead to ascribed negative labels of whole neighborhoods or even specific streets. These negative reputations may often begin as heresay, based upon the obviously deteriorating infrastructure, but then actually serve to create the impetus for rising rates of crime and violence, occurring often due to the belief that no one is looking, and that no one cares. These known dangerous neighborhoods become quickly stigmatized, provoking fear in all those who dare to live nearby and walk through them at night, thereby perpetuating the cycle of crime and neglect.
What can be done, then, to affect this cause and effect relationship between the built environment and rates of crime and violence? And, how can city planning departments, neighborhood watch organizations, or even local artists reverse the seemingly inevitable blight of city streets at the outset of the first broken window—without simply re-constructing those ruined facades, that may only be immediately broken again? It is first necessary, in order to put a wrench in the “broken windows” cycle, to promote the idea that someone is watching, or that there are “eyes on the street.”
Jane Jacobs famously wrote, "There must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to ensure the safety of both residents and strangers must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their back or blank sides on it and leave it blind.” Jacobs speaks more practically of the need for mixed-use development, or that of a combination residential and commercial, to ensure constant activity and human presence. However, rather than restructure neighborhood zoning, thereby changing a neighborhood’s unique form and function to create that constant human presence, it is possible to use public art to placate the danger, crime, and negative associations of place that are often linked to a lack of the public eye.
A public art work can provide a knowing sense that care has been spent into considering and revitalizing that space. Serving to ultimately reverse those feelings of danger, and a real reduction of crime and violence, public art can provide that needed sense of exposure to a watchful eye. Such a lasting mark, however big or small, shows the mark of beginning attention to a blighted neighborhood—deterring the window-breaker, perhaps, from smashing that window, for fear that the mural-maker may just walk on by.
Though not a substitute for a neighborhood’s needed infrastructure improvements, public art can be an important part of the revitalizing process; involving not just the office of public works’ practical methods for physical neighborhood improvement, a public art project can be easily made participatory, involved the entire community’s stake in social and physical revitalization. Creating a participatory public art project, such as a group mural-making, or collaborative brain storm session, charges the neighborhood to become collaborators in the art-making. This method is emphasized in The University of Colorado, Denver's public art research archive in a statement on "Plop Art." In the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine High school tragedy, Denver showed the healing power and community-building prospects of public art: "Public art in the U.S. is now being shifted from ‘Plop Art’ [art works being placed without any consideration of its entered environment and residents] to ‘Community-Making Art,’ or creation of public art works involving the entire community.”
Community building through the arts is a longstanding theme within Partners’ Shifting Sands Initiative, which showcases the arts and culture as vehicles for neighborhood change, and demonstrates to arts organizations that community-based arts serve to provide lasting community development. From The ARTS at Marks Garage, a collaborative gallery, performance, and office space in Honolulu, HI which aims to transform the downtown through the power of the arts, to Project Row Houses in Houston, TX, which creates art installations within shotgun-style row houses to demonstrate a community response to a lack of affordable housing, public art is changing the face of communities everywhere.
So where do we go from here, Kelly Bennett of San Diego? How can we demonstrate that your city’s pull from public art funding is a backward step in the urban planning process, and that public art should be a funding priority? Perhaps it is best to showcase the endless proven case studies of cities world-wide, large and small, which have benefitted from public art works. Or, perhaps it is best to take a stack of home-made art and the accompanying flour+water mixture, wheat paste, to cover those blighted and often-ignored city walls with positive, colorful works of guerilla art [though Partners for Livable Communities cannot endorse this without city permission]. In either directionthat you choose, the endless proofs endorsed in this article prove that public art is an effective change-maker for community-building and place-making, and that it can even serve to fight crime.
Citations
(1) James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. "BROKEN WINDOWS: The police and neighborhood safety" (PDF). http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/_atlantic_monthly-broken_windows.pdf
(2) Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) New York: Random House. ISBN 0-679-60047-7.
(3) Blobaum, A. and Hunecke, M. Perceived Danger in Urban Public Space: The Impacts of Physical Features and Personal Factors ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. 37 No. 4, July 2005 465-486. DOI: 10.1177/0013916504269643. © 2005 Sage Publications
(4) Bennett, Kelly. http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/arts/article_bc31a170-c509-11df-931c-001cc4c002e0.html