You’re right, it is sad to see that the new homes have not improved safety in the Liberty City. Again, I want to say that I commend Habitat for trying to give people better places to live (or a place to live at all), especially in a place like Miami-Dade that has such an abysmal record with affordable housing. However, it’s frustrating for me personally that people still believe that suburban design is key to improving housing and living conditions.

To answer your question, it will take an awful lot to really see the kind of improvements we all want to see in Liberty City. The barracks-style housing projects certainly don’t deserve any awards, but as poorly as they are designed, it’s not their fault that crime and poverty is the way it is there. We’re talking about deeply entrenched social and institutional problems, the same ones that need to be addressed in cities with design elements ranging from Houston to Hartford, Philly to Phoenix.

I’m as big a proponent of quality, dense urban design as anyone, but even I can admit that perfect urban design in itself won’t be the answer to Liberty City’s crime problems. I do know that certain forms of urban design facilitate a more pedestrian-oriented environment, with more eyes on the streets and public spaces. I also know that there are serious transportation equity issues in Liberty City. Transit connections to job centers needs to be much improved to the neighborhood, because forcing communities with over 50% of residents with median household incomes below the poverty line to own cars to get access to anywhere is frankly discriminatory. A more balanced socio-economic make up will bring class diversity to the neighborhood, but that isn’t likely to come until the transit does. Of course, transit and the denser land uses that facilitate eyes on the street go hand-in-hand, which is why some form of rail transit should be sought, whether or not it’s in the form of the North Corridor Metrorail expansion.

There’s many other barriers and solutions, however it’s nearly impossible to address them all here, even if I claimed to have all the answers (and I don’t).

The topic of improving depressed neighborhoods at a neighborhood-level scale is definitely something we’re pursuing at Transit Miami, and we’d like to encourage those that are interested to email us with your ideas for positive change or how you’d like to get involved.