Demographic Change, Disorder, and Crime: Evidence from Canada’s Fastest Growing City

• In Event: Static and Dynamic Influences of Neighborhood Demography on Crime

Abstract

This paper looks at the relationships among neighborhood characteristics, social and physical disorder, and rates of violent and property crime in an urban setting marked by rapid population growth and significant changes in population composition. The analysis is set in Calgary, the fastest growing city in Canada in each decade since 1981. This rapid and near continuous growth has led to both increasing density in many inner-city neighborhoods and extensive suburbanization. The foreign-born population has grown rapidly as well, as immigrants have flocked to a city with the lowest unemployment rate and highest median family income in the country. Using data compiled by police and city by-law enforcement officers, the analysis will look at the links between disorder and crime in the city’s neighborhoods from 2006-2013, a period of rapid demographic and social change. Data from the census and from a variety of local sources allow us to draw a detailed picture of the social and economic characteristics of the city’s 185 communities and explore the disorder/crime nexus in an atypical urban environment.

Authors

• Kevin McQuillan, University of Calgary

• Erin Elan Gibbs Van Brunschot, University of Calgary