Neighbourhood Crime and Scattered-site Public Housing

Abstract

In this paper, an assessment is made of the extent to which proximity to 38 dispersed public housing sites opening in Denver during 1992-95 affected post-development levels and trends in neighbourhood crime rates. A new econometric specification incorporating pre- and post-controls for selection bias as well as spatial autocorrelation was employed to test for statistical relationships between the development of dispersed public housing sites and subsequent increases in various types of crime. The findings suggest that proximity to dispersed public housing was not associated with any post-development increase in reported crime of any type.

Rental housing and crime: the role of property ownership and management

“…For example, public ownership has been found to be associated with more crime (McNulty and Holloway 2000; Roncek et al 1981). This finding may simply reflect other factors correlated with public housing such as tenant socioeconomic disadvantage and social isolation (McNulty and Holloway 2000), certain aspects of the built environment (Mazerolle and Terrill 1997) or apartment complex scale (Santiago et al 2003;Roncek et al 1981).…”

Beyond anecdotal evidence: Do subsidized housing developments increase neighborhood crime?

“…The underlying concept of the AITSeDID model is comparing the levels and trends of crime rates in neighborhoods with a LIHTC site before and after it was developed with those in other neighborhoods across the city where a LIHTC site was not developed (Galster et al, 2002;Koschinsky, 2009;Santiago et al, 2003;Woo et al, 2015). Thus, the model clarifies the causal direction of impacts of LIHTC developments by projecting the pre-development level and trend of crime rates in the neighborhood into the post-development period, while accounting for changes in city-wide crime trends .…”

“…The vector of ring variables (R it ) captures the differentials in levels and trends of pre-and post-crime rates related to LIHTC developments by comparing control and impact areas (Galster et al, 2002;Koschinsky, 2009;Santiago et al, 2003;Woo et al, 2014). The fundamental concept of ring variables could be explained in terms of 1) crime rates in control/impact areas and 2) pre/post differentials in the levels and trends of crime rates.…”

“…In terms of proximity to LIHTC developments, 9.96 percent (35,415 incidents) of property crimes were within 2000 feet of LIHTC developments and 15.76 percent (3664 incidents) of violent crimes were within 2000 feet of LIHTC sites. Additionally, as the dependent variable in our analyses, we used crime rates that were standardized per 100 residents using Census 2000 population estimates for constituent census block groups (Galster et al, 2002;Santiago et al, 2003). 4 Table 1 shows the trend in crime rates per 100 persons in Austin.…”

The Evolving South African Neighbourhood: The Case of Westdene, Bloemfontein

“…Furthermore, Santiago et al (2003) suggest that one of the main non-economic negative influences on neighbourhood property prices and social character is crime. Violence also impacts on neighbourhood business activity, as fear of violence will cause consumers, employees and entrepreneurs to alter their routine activities in areas that experience a surge in violent activity (Greenbaum and Tita 2004).…”