The Project Team will establish a more targeted and efficient process for rapidly remediating vacant lots and abandoned structures in the Mill City neighborhood. First, it will use neighborhood focus groups and Risk-Terrain Modeling to assess where a collection of spatial features and environmental factors contribute to the risk of gun violence.  Next, by replacing the standard "first in, first out" remediation approach with a block-by-block strategy, it should reduce the wait time for an intervention. This means the team will prioritize remediating every overgrown vacant lot and abandoned building in one block at once instead of conducting one-off remediations in a neighborhood.

The project will be assess through three methods: (1) Process Evaluation: The process evaluation will assess whether the pilot is implemented as intended and identify distinct project elements that facilitate or hinder successful implementation. This evaluation will reveal specific strategies to replicate when expanding the pilot to a full-fledged program. (2) Field Observation and Condition Analysis: While the physical evidence of this project will be clear within the community, a field observation protocol will be developed to document and assess conditions before, during, and after the remediation and maintenance efforts have been completed across the community. (3) Method Assessment: Quasi-experiments demonstrate causality between intervention efforts and related effects when randomization is not feasible. The initiative will employ quasi-experimental methodology to evaluate the impact of block-by-block remediation on outcome metrics, such as violent gun crime, over time.