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With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Aspen Institute undertook a multi-year project to bring together thought leaders and experts from different sectors, including libraries, to consider the challenges, opportunities and trends that will influence the future of public libraries in the United States. The resulting report, Rising to the Challenge: Re-Envisioning Public Libraries, was issued in October 2014. The Aspen Institute has embarked upon an ambitious program to ensure that the report will be used in communities across the country and at state and national levels to promote the transformation and sustainability of this important community resource. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There may well be a decline in the overall crime rate in the USA, but violent and other crimes in cities are still prevalent, suggesting a need to develop improvements that may reduce crime even more. Confusion exists about the causes, promotion, and mitigation of crime in cities. Fear and types of crimes in urban areas seem to play an important role in influencing people's decisions in choosing where to live. This study reviews comprehensive sets of indicators composed of those variables consistently stated in the literature that affect an individual's sense of safety and security in cities - suggesting that physical components of urban environments make a significant contribution to the variation in violent offenses within cities over and above the contributions made by either the social and economic variables. Correlations between criminal offenses, physical attributes, race, gender, income, population densities, and other variables are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]