Neighborhood Immigrant Concentrations: The Importance of Historical Change for Detroit Metro Crime Rates

• In Event: Gentrification and Neighborhood Change Dynamics

Abstract

Contemporary academic discussions of immigration and crime often focus on the influence of immigration at the neighborhood level. It has recently been suggested, however, that measures of “immigrant concentration” do not uniformly predict crime rates across neighborhoods within a city; instead, the association may depend on when one is looking at a particular point in time. The current study describes immigrant concentration in Detroit metropolitan neighborhoods from 1970-2010. We examine how immigrant concentration in these neighborhoods has changed over time (or not), and if typical measures of “immigrant concentration” accurately reflect changes in the level of immigrant populations, their composition, both, or neither. We also investigate if within-neighborhood changes (in level and composition) of immigrant concentration over time have important effects on the models. The results contribute to a growing trend in criminological research which views neighborhoods in a dynamic way, as units that change over time, instead of considering only between-neighborhood differences at a single time point. Results may be particularly useful for local policy makers, who need to consider not only current but past immigration to design effective crime-control policies.

Authors

• Jacob H. Becker, Oakland University

• Lori A. Burrington, Oakland University