A study of 541 vacant lots in the United States demonstrated a 29% decrease in gun violence and 13.3% decrease in overall crime in neighborhoods below the poverty line after the implementation of inexpensive cleaning and greening interventions for blighted vacant lots.
Branas, Charles C., Eugenia South, Michelle C. Kondo, Bernadette C. Hohl, Philippe Bourgois, Douglas J. Wiebe, and John M. MacDonald. (March 2018) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 115(12): 2946-2951. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718503115
