Repurposing closed schools mitigated violence, researchers say
The study, led by researchers at the University of Chicago and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, examined Chicago Police Department crime data from 2010 through 2019 and found that shooting incidents increased by roughly 10 percent around the buildings left empty after the 2013 mass closing of 50 public schools. The largest mass school closure in U.S. history was concentrated on the city’s South and West sides, and more than half of the closed buildings remained vacant for the next decade, despite city officials having set a goal to sell or demolish all of them by 2017.
Demetrius Hobson, who served as principal of the former Matthew Henson Elementary School in North Lawndale before its closure, described the area around his former school as a “dead zone” in the middle of the neighborhood.
The research also found that the rise in gun violence was not uniform across all closed schools. Elizabeth Tung, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and a study co-author, said the researchers did not see the same increase in shootings around closed buildings that had been converted to new uses.
“Reuse seemed to mitigate, at least in part, the impact of school closure,” Tung said. “Whereas for the schools that remained vacant, and you had a massive vacant lot and an empty building, that’s where you really saw the increase in firearm violence.”
One example cited was the Anthony Overton Center for Excellence at 4927 S. Indiana Ave. in the Bronzeville neighborhood, which was turned into a community hub after its school closed. The study’s finding suggests that repurposing the buildings — rather than leaving them vacant — can reduce the public-safety consequences that followed the historic wave of school closings.