In addition to providing an opportunity to model and to critique field techniques, these visits provided the Principal Investigator with an overview of the year's work and with personal observations to share and discuss with the research teams. The project staff met each week to discuss the progress of research. The projects chosen varied remarkably in the characteristics of their field sites. The differences have to do with siting and its consequences for adult surveillance. Whether streets run continuously through a development or consist of cul de sacs which oblige one to leave by the route through which one entered affects crime and drug dealing.
Some layouts make transaction privacy and evasion of law enforcers easier than others.
These differences are obvious in contiguous develpments as the following site plan shows. Strinkingly, in past years the issue of security never came up with such frequency, consistency, and intensity. Clearly, increasing citizen concerns with security is a factor which planners must weigh heavily. At every site, children were the central factor in residents' adaptive strategies. For residents, the problem of creating and maintaing community is continual, whether or not they are aware of it.