Associations between land bank ownership and stewardship of vacant properties and crime, violence, and youth victimization in Flint, MI

• DOI: 10.1002/ajcp.12706
• Publication Date: 2023-10-17T07:25:38Z
• Authors: Gregory Bushman; Michelle C. Kondo; Laney A. Rupp; Bernadette C. Hohl; Catherine H. Gong; Marc A. Zimmerman
• Keywords: Stewardship

Abstract Land banks across the United States are managing expanding vacant property inventories. By maintaining properties and engaging residents in process, land facilitate processes integral to building safe neighborhoods may play a role violence prevention. Using generalized additive mixed model regression, adjusted for spatial temporal dependencies, we examined whether bank ownership stewardship of Flint, Michigan were associated with trends serious, violent, firearm‐involved crime, between 2015 2018. We tested differences crime density owned by Genesee County Bank Authority (GCLBA; n = 7151) comparison not ( 6,245). In addition, that received different levels stewardship, including biannual mowing, GCLBA standard GCLBA‐sponsored community‐engaged stewardship. found was net declines densities all types violence, over time, relative GCLBA. When distinguished both without community engagement, serious violent properties. Only youth victim be protective against victimization legacy cities like MI experience high rates crime.