Rehabilitating Vacant Lots Improves Urban Health and Safety

  An article posted in Science Daily about "greening" vacant lots is yet another example of how urban ecology is an environmental justice issue.  As the article quotes, "Improving the places where people live, work and play, holds great promise for changing health and safety."  A study was done on the effect of "greening", or transforming vacant/waste plots into environmentally-friendly and clean spaces, in neighborhoods.  The study was "one of the first rigorous studies to show that reducing physical decay in neighborhoods...reduces public safety crimes, demonstrating that healthier places are safer places."  This also shows how location and place is extremely important to public health.  While these sites are not specific to indigenous populations or the place of relocation, they still impact a neighborhood's overall health and safety.  This agrees with our conversations about personal and cultural health being related to place.  If a place is polluted by dumping and exposed toxic waste, the health of the community declines as well as the overall safety.  "The large number of vacant lots we studied and the design of our analysis make this study some of the strongest evidence to date that greening vacant urban land is a promising approach to improving health and safety," says the scientists involved in the study.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111117140420.htm