This can lead to people taking better care of their physical surroundings. Some community groups pressure city agencies to provide better services, such as trash pick-up, street cleaning, or streetlight repair. A more attractive neighborhood is both cause and effect of a stronger sense of community. Increased visual attractiveness can increase property values and property owner's willingness to invest in their property. It can also increase the desire of residents and business owners to invest their personal time and resources in the community.
Key Tasks Create a focus group of residents to develop standards of visual attractiveness.
Designate a group of community residents and staff to tour the neighborhood and assess visual attractiveness using consistent standards. In the long term, providing solely housing construction or rehabilitation cannot strengthen a neighborhood. Outcome indicators such as change in the single family housing market and improvements in the physical appearance of buildings provide important neighborhood-wide measures of impact to programs involved in producing and improving housing units in a community. Compare these numbers from block to block and from year to year. This data should be collected at least once a year.