Measuring Exterior Safety of Canadian Residential Neighbourhoods

A safety audit measures the safety of 36 exterior attributes of properties and streets in a low-density residential neighbourhood in terms of four principles of modern crime prevention through environmental design, namely, territoriality, natural surveillance, activity support and access control. Eighty-three residents have walked around each of their small neighbourhoods, and audited the safeties of its area, individual private properties, and adjacent area in daylight;and the safeties of its area, properties, and exterior lighting in darkness. Findings are that older-urban neighbourhoods’ overall safety percentages and attribute safeties in daylight and darkness were consistently lower than those in newer suburban, rural or small-town ones;and frequently lower than those in newer-urban neighbourhoods, or older suburban, rural or small-town ones. Recommendations are about improving 12 less safe or unsafe attributes by means of physical planning and environmental design. Also having identified those attributes, we speculate about replicating the safety audit via online Street Views of existing Canadian neighbourhoods.

Three Applications of V.3 Google Maps: Just for Display of Data, or Analysis as Well?

A question about the analytical capability of Google maps is answered for three examples of pin maps, and polyline and polygon maps that are computer-programmed with the third version of the Google maps application. One map reads XML data stored on the home server, whereas another downloads its data from an online fusion table, and the third includes pre-programmed data. Each map permits users to query mashup layers after the map has loaded. However, an analytical capability comparable to GIS should require users to have access to their data for analysis with their own functions while the map is loading. The technical constraint of asynchronous loading of data for Google maps is illustrated for each map. In conclusion, only one map has an analytical capability that is achieved by means of deprecated synchronous loading of data.

Inner-City Neighbourhood Changes Predicted from House Prices in Windsor, Ontario, since the Early- or Mid-1980s

Changes in prices of homes are hypothesized as correlated with the times of their sale and resale and the attributes of their dwelling unit and neighbourhood and those of neighbouring homes. They may also be correlated with the occurrences of events inside the neighbourhoods caused by the activities of individuals and organizations outside the neighbourhoods, such as whether the local economy is in a recession or has a high unemployment rate. Calibrated hybrid housing price models predict precipitous decreases in house prices of approximately 2900 sold and resold homes in two inner-city neighbourhoods in Windsor, Ontario, during those events since 1981 or 1986. Overall modest predicted percentage increases in houses’ prices during more than 30 years therefore subsumed periods of inner-city neighbourhood deterioration in dispersed locations of unimproved and disimproved homes. Compensatory predictions however are of increasing prices for minorities of homes with improvements to several attributes of the dwelling unit and neighbourhood.

Measuring Exterior Housing Quality in Four Older-Urban Neighbourhoods in Windsor, Ontario

Four theoretically-deduced hypotheses about geographical and temporal variations in exterior housing quality within a neighbourhood are summarized as a renovation- or deterioration-of-self effect, a contagion-down-the-street effect, a distance-from-riverbank effect, and a distance-from core effect. These hypotheses are tested with data for the exterior conditions of hundreds of single- detached (-like) houses that have been individually surveyed twice with the same instrument in four older-urban neighbourhoods in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Each surveyed house’s rated conditions of 12 exterior attributes are in particular utilized to calculate its overall exterior quality as a percentage above or below normal. Findings are that houses’ exteriors had average “normal” weathered conditions for Canada. Even so, overall exterior housing qualities in three neighbourhoods exemplified a hypothesized deterioration-of-self effect and proximity-to-core effect, as they had especially declined from their original survey to their resurvey for houses located near to a core such as downtown or a casino. In addition, the hypothesized distance-from-riverbank effect was observed in one neighbourhood where overall exterior housing quality linearly deteriorated with farther distance from a riverbank. Finally, overall exterior housing qualities had no observable contagion-down-the-street effect, and so, residents were not reacting positively or negatively to their neighbours’ maintenance and improvement of their homes’ exteriors. The practical implications of the study’s findings are discussed in the conclusion.