Trial reportInjury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention2013
Greening vacant lots to reduce violent crime: a randomised controlled trial.
Trial report in Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Impact of Green Space on Violent Crime in Urban Environments: An Evidence Synthesis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Pooled it
- Building a Culture of Health Through the Built Environment: Impact of a Cluster Randomized Trial Remediating Vacant and Abandoned Property on Health Mindsets.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2025Trial
- Effect of Abandoned Housing Interventions on Gun Violence, Perceptions of Safety, and Substance Use in Black Neighborhoods: A Citywide Cluster Randomized Trial.JAMA internal medicine · 2023Trial
- Gender Differences in Impacts of Place-Based Neighborhood Greening Interventions on Fear of Violence Based on a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2021Trial
- Effect of Greening Vacant Land on Mental Health of Community-Dwelling Adults: A Cluster Randomized Trial.JAMA network open · 2018Trial
- Citywide cluster randomized trial to restore blighted vacant land and its effects on violence, crime, and fear.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Trial
- Can Enhanced Street Lighting Improve Public Safety at Scale?Criminology & public policy · 2026Article
- Community-engaged crime prevention through environmental design and reductions in violent and firearm crime.American journal of community psychology · 2025Article
- Examining associations between street vegetation and child firearm violence at microgeographic locations in 3 US cities: a case-control study.BMC pediatrics · 2025Article
- Impact of Neighborhood Factors on Exercise Capacity in Children With Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.Circulation. Heart failure · 2025Article
- A systematic environmental intervention, nidotherapy, given to whole communities: protocol for a randomised stepped-wedge trial.BJPsych open · 2025Article
- Article
- Historical Redlining and Contemporary Violent Victimization Over the Life Course.American journal of preventive medicine · 2024Article
- Building a Culture of Health Through the Built Environment: Impact of a Cluster Randomized Trial Remediating Vacant and Abandoned Property on Health Mindsets.Research square · 2024Article
- Trends in police complaints and arrests on New York City subways, 2018 to 2023: an interrupted time-series analysis.Injury epidemiology · 2024Article
- [Effects of Television Screen Exposure on the Mental Health of Middle-aged and Older Adults].Sichuan da xue xue bao. Yi xue ban = Journal of Sichuan University. Medical science edition · 2023Article
- Community-Level Social Vulnerability and Patterns of Adolescent Injury.Annals of surgery open : perspectives of surgical history, education, and clinical approaches · 2023Article
- Association of Community Vulnerability and State Gun Laws With Firearm Deaths in Children and Adolescents Aged 10 to 19 Years.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- Challenges, Successes, and the Future of Firearm Injury Prevention.The Milbank quarterly · 2023Article
- Community engagement, greening, and violent crime: A test of the greening hypothesis and Busy Streets.American journal of community psychology · 2023Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundVacant lots are often overgrown with unwanted vegetation and filled with trash, making them attractive places to hide illegal guns, conduct illegal activities such as drug sales and prostitution, and engage in violent crime. There is some evidence that greening vacant lots is associated with reductions in violent crime.
methodsWe performed a randomised controlled trial of vacant lot greening to test the impact of this intervention on police reported crime and residents' perceptions of safety and disorder. Greening consisted of cleaning the lots, planting grass and trees, and building a wooden fence around the perimeter. We randomly allocated two vacant lot clusters to the greening intervention or to the control status (no intervention). Administrative data were used to determine crime rates, and local resident interviews at baseline (n=29) and at follow-up (n=21) were used to assess perceptions of safety and disorder.
resultsUnadjusted difference-in-differences estimates showed a non-significant decrease in the number of total crimes and gun assaults around greened vacant lots compared with control. People around the intervention vacant lots reported feeling significantly safer after greening compared with those living around control vacant lots (p<0.01).
conclusionsIn this study, greening was associated with reductions in certain gun crimes and improvements in residents' perceptions of safety. A larger randomised controlled trial is needed to further investigate the link between vacant lot greening and violence reduction.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.