The Cost of Play: Do Youth Recreation Centers Improve Public Safety and Prosperity?

• In Event: Youth Interventions and Crime

Abstract

Baltimore experienced contentious changes to its youth recreation center infrastructure following a mayor-appointed task force review initiated in 2011. The task force employed detailed scorecards to evaluate facility condition and functionality, and its report informed a series of permanent and temporary rec center closures and service reductions. Although the policy aimed to consolidate resources and improve facility standards, critics argue that these closures have had unintended consequences on public safety and community cohesion. Our study leverages these exogenous closure decisions as a quasi-experiment to examine their impact on neighborhood crime rates and residential property values. Using an instrumental variables difference-in-differences framework, we analyze comprehensive crime records and property transaction data from Baltimore to determine whether reduced access to supervised, structured youth activities is associated with increased youth gun violence and declining local property markets. Our findings offer important insights into the broader economic and social costs of reducing community public amenities and contribute to the literature on urban crime and public policy evaluation.

Authors

• Greg Midgette, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Lauren C Porter, University of Maryland, College Park
  Presenting Author