Neighborhood Change: Changing Organizational Composition or Busy Places?

• In Event: Faith and Finances: How Local Institutions like Churches and Banks Matter

Abstract

Since the work of Shaw and McKay on Social Disorganization theory in the 1920’s, there has been a good deal of research examining neighborhood factors and their relationship to crime rates with much recent work exploring the role of organizations. Despite progress in measurement of key variables and methods, one aspect of the theory is rarely examined – the role of change. In this paper, the crime data is combined with the Neighborhood Change Database (NCDB), which normalizes census tracts from 1990 to 2000 to 2010, and is used to allow for analyses across a uniform set of boundaries. These data are combined with data on neighborhood organizations such as churches, financial institutions, and schools, to examine change in population as well as organizational structure. This allows for an examination of the effects of neighborhood change as well as for a more rigorous test of organizational vs. “busy places” perspectives.

Authors

• Randy Gainey, Old Dominion University

• Garland White, Old Dominion University

• Ruth Triplett, Old Dominion University