Crime and the Life Course of Neighborhoods: A Change Would do you Good?

• In Event: Land Use Change and Neighborhood Change: Consequences for Disorder and Disorganization

Abstract

Although the vast majority of neighborhood research focuses on static patterns of crime and other social characteristics within neighborhoods, Bursik and Webb (1982) noted nearly 35 years ago that neighborhood dynamics that change over time are key to explaining crime patterns. Surprisingly few studies examine the long-term neighborhood dynamics of neighborhoods, and in this study, we explicitly consider the life course dynamics of neighborhoods. We focus on how economic characteristics and racial and ethnic changes impact our understanding of long-term community crime patterns. To test these ideas, we employ crime and census tract data from 1970-2010, and we estimate a series of fixed effects models. We show that some neighborhood factors appear durable across time in their consequences for crime, while others appear to have “turning points” in differing historical contexts. An implication of our findings is that the factors driving neighborhood crime rates differ depending on the particular characteristic, historical period, and crime type of interest.

Authors

• Adam Boessen, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Marisa Omori, University of Miami