Another Tale of Two Cities
Neighborhood Watch from Ann Arbor to Baghdad
Sandra Lach Arlinghaus
Adjunct Professor of Mathematical Geography and Population-Environment Dynamics, School of Natural Resources and Environment

Neighbors watching out for the welfare of neighbors is as old as the humanity, itself.  When strong systems for neighborly assistance are in place, secure and happy (or improving) neighborhoods are the result.  The attached link illustrates one effort to comment on this idea using data from two disparate situations:  Ann Arbor, Michigan, where systematic neighborhood watch networks have been in place for 50 years (since about 1967) and Baghdad, Iraq, where systematic neighborhood watch networks are newly emerging social structures. 

The two parts of the website emerged originally from two different interests.  The Ann Arbor part came from the author's continuing participation in the City of Ann Arbor Neighborhood Watch program (of the Ann Arbor Police Department):  both as a block captain in that system and as a member of the City-wide Neighborhood Watch Advisory Panel.  The Baghdad part emerged as an opportunity to compare and constrast two systems using the GEOMAT methodology, developed by Ann Larimore, which Ann Larimore and the author, along with Robert Haug, use in teaching courses at The University of Michigan.

The linked website illustrates the current status of the GEOMAT progress.  The link is to a live site so that readers might return and see the latest.  In terms of long-range persistence, however, the work is also captured in a zipped file and archived in Deep Blue with a persistent url.  The persistent url will continue to be available and will contain this explanation.

Link to persistent url for all of Solstice:
  http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/58219

Static screen shot from Google Earth:


Solstice:  An Electronic Journal of Geography and Mathematics, 
Volume XIX, Number 1
Institute of Mathematical Geography (IMaGe).
All rights reserved worldwide, by IMaGe and by the authors.
Please contact an appropriate party concerning citation of this article: sarhaus@umich.edu
http://www.imagenet.org