LEFT OF DAYTON

…AND THE GATES CAME TUMBLING DOWN

About a dozen years ago the city of Dayton, in conjunction with the Five Oaks Neighborhood Improvement Association {FONIA} fell into the clutches of the DEFENSIBLE SPACE Movement. This theory of urban control posited that, by breaking larger neighborhoods into smaller, so called “mini-neighborhoods” bracketed by gates that blocked off various streets it would produce a larger sense of “community”. Ten years later the result seem pretty clear.

Most of the people who fought FOR the gates, the leadership of the “movement” have moved OUT of 5 Oaks. There are dozens of boarded up and abandoned homes and, lo and behold, in recent months more and more of the original internal gates have been unhinged and taken down. All this after an effort that cost the City of Dayton over a million dollars in repairs and maintenance costs. Defensible Space as an urban concept seems to be on its way out the door in Dayton, at least in the extreme methodology that was applied to 5 Oaks.