Like many Black Philadelphians, Lloyd grew up surrounded by stark poverty. For decades, Philadelphia was America’s poorest big city, suffering the highest poverty rate of the 10 most populous metropolises in the United States. Historic, racist urban policies such as redlining meant that poverty was — and still is today — unequally felt: 24.5% of Black residents now live below the poverty line, double the rate of white residents. Criminal gangs thrived in and preyed on Black districts.
But over the past years, shoots of hope have begun to emerge in Lloyd’s community thanks to a groundbreaking project revealing an underappreciated upside to creating and maintaining urban green spaces: preventing violent crime.
In the past, Lloyd’s block was filled with blighted lots, usually overgrown with weeds and effectively serving as dump sites for trash or abandoned automobiles. They were hubs for drug deals and criminal gangs across the city, spaces that created fear among residents.
Then the clean-up began.
Under the LandCare program, run by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) and funded by the municipality, teams of workers began to transform lots: removing trash, cutting the grass, and adding soil.
It was fairly simple work, but the project — piloted in the late 1990s before being officially adopted in 2003 — has taken on an impressive scale and has had a genuinely positive impact on neighborhoods. Some 12,000 cleared plots of land are currently being maintained — about 15 million square feet and a third of the city’s vacant land.
“Philadelphia, like many other cities in the U.S., has a significant issue when it comes to blighted land, dating back to the decline of industry,” says Melissa Stutzbach, the director of LandCare. “These abandoned lots get in the way of vibrant, thriving neighborhoods. The overgrowth of weeds tends to attract criminal activity.”
According to Stutzbach, criminals use abandoned lots to sell and use drugs, to dump stolen vehicles, to hide firearms, and as escape routes from police raids. “When there [is] trash and weeds and dumping, it signals that no one is watching, that no one cares,” she adds.
LandCare takes a place-based approach to crime and violence prevention, a radical shift from the status quo of targeting individuals. Proponents argue that not enough attention is given to the role of urban design in preventing — or indeed, when done badly, encouraging — crime. By cleaning up the lots, authorities are deterring illegal dumping and also creating community assets, particularly for Black communities that don’t typically have access to green space, and improving mental health.
The program works with locals and community groups to identify target areas and lots that are “abandoned, blighted, or subject to persistent illegal dumping.” With city approval, PHS is granted access to clean and green the vacant lots.
Once these lots have been identified, PHS works with a network of 21 community organizations and 17 small business contractors to carry out the initial cleaning and to return twice a month for upkeep. This work represents an investment of $7 million a year, one that provides sorely needed jobs for the local post-industrial economy.
But the project also relies on volunteers. Lloyd is what’s known as a “Block Captain,” and it is her responsibility to motivate residents on her block — which is home to about 40 households and a dozen vacant lots — to keep it clean. There are thousands of Block Captains across Philadelphia, thanks to a program run by the municipality.
“We all have our own agendas,” she says. “I hate trash. I want to live on a beautiful block.”
And so, vacant lot by vacant lot, Philadelphia is being transformed.
Residents are using the reclaimed land to hold barbecues or even weddings. Some use the green spaces to walk their dogs or play with their children. In the Christmas holiday season, neighbors decorate the lot fences. They have also hosted Easter egg hunts.
But research has shown that the project is having a more profound impact.
A study in 2018 found that there was a 29% reduction in gun violence and a 21% reduction in burglary in neighborhoods near LandCare lots, among other benefits. Separate research also found a 41.5% reduction in depression among residents living near the greened lots. Meanwhile, other research showed that properties within a 1,000-foot radius of a greened lot increased in value by an average 4.3% after the first year, and 13% after six years.
Broader findings across the U.S. suggest a link between green space and lower crime. In 2025, researchers at the University of Illinois published a study — the first of its kind — that showed a significant association between higher greenness levels and lower levels of fatal police shootings, using data for 3,108 counties in the U.S.
“I was gobsmacked when I got the results,” says William Sullivan, a coauthor and landscape architecture professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “They were very clear: the greener the county, the fewer the fatal shootings.”
And according to Sullivan, his previous research can help explain why that is. Green spaces can create stronger ties between neighbors, in turn increasing civic engagement and informal surveillance of neighborhoods. They also help people to recover from stress faster, making conflict less likely, and they can improve people’s awareness and reduce irritability and impulsivity.
“When people are mentally fatigued, they are likely to miss details,” he says. “If you are a police officer, you could feel more of a threat than there is; you might be more likely to pull a trigger than not.”
Amid growing urbanization in the U.S., and in light of the fact that violent crime tends to be higher in cities than in rural or suburban areas, Sullivan argues that urban greening could help keep cities safer. And there’s plenty to work with: The U.S. has about 3 million hectares of vacant or abandoned urban land — 15% of all land in cities.
“I’m not saying you should plant trees instead of doing other reforms, but green spaces can play a role,” says Sullivan. “Everyday green spaces are critical to neighborhood infrastructure. We should prioritize them.”
The cost of greening lots is low, too, especially when compared with what authorities have to spend when contending with illegal dumping and violent crime. The average lot, about 13,000 square feet, costs $1,800 to $2,000 to clear, and maintenance is about $300 a month. “It’s a low-cost intervention that can be reproduced fairly easily,” says Stutzbach.
“It makes a huge amount of economic sense,” echoes Sullivan. “And the project has proven impact.”
Yet one serious concern for Lloyd is the impact that increasing attractiveness of the area could have on local life. With less crime and more green space, property developers are tempted to move in and potentially displace longtime residents.
“I’m not against development,” says Lloyd. “But we want to save areas for the old homeowners. Gentrification is starting. We have to fight predator[y] developers.”
Since PHS doesn’t own the land, there are limits to what it can do in some cases. About 60% of the vacant lots are on public land, according to Stutzbach, and 40% are privately owned. PHS loses about a fifth of its cleaned lots a year as the owners develop on them. Most stay in their inventory for a few years, but some date back as far as the year 2000. “It does encourage development in good ways and more challenging ways,” she says. “We are definitely trying to not displace people.”
Not all green spaces are equal, either. Criminals could benefit from vegetation that limits visibility or that provides hiding places. “Design of green spaces matters,” says Sullivan. “Sight lines and visibility, it’s really important.”
But for now, PHS is attempting to maximize impact as part of its next generation. As such, it is targeting neighborhoods in need, particularly those with existing community networks, rather than previous, more scattered efforts. It is also prioritizing the creation of greened lots in flood-prone areas, boosting climate resilience, and enhancing interventions by creating pollinator gardens in the greened lots that can support local biodiversity. Meanwhile, this spring, PHS began to clear up 100,000 square feet of vacant land in the nearby city of Chester in collaboration with local authorities to see if its model can take root elsewhere.
“When I open my door, I’m happy that I’m no longer stepping into a dumping facility,” says Lloyd. “My block is like my living room. I want to keep it clean.”
This story was produced by Reasons to be Cheerful and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.