Blowing it up and knocking it down: The local and city-wide effects of demolishing high concentration public housing on crime

Aliprantis, Dionissi; Hartley, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.jue.2015.06.002

Cited by 55 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(8 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…predictions, the existing empirical evidence on the relationship between crime and neighborhood change is mixed (McDonald, 1986;Van Wilsem, Wittebrood and De Graaf, 2006;Covington and Taylor, 1989;Taylor and Covington, 1988;Lee, 2010;Papachristos, Smith, Scherer and Fugiero, 2011; Aliprantis and Hartley, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gentrification and the Amenity Value of Crime Reductions: Evidence from Rent Deregulation

Autor¹,

Palmer²,

Pathak³

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Gentrification involves large-scale neighborhood change whereby new residents and improved amenities increase property values. In this paper, we study whether and how much public safety improvements are capitalized by the housing market after an exogenous shock to the gentrification process. We use variation induced by the sudden end of rent control in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1995 to examine within-Cambridge variation in reported crime across neighborhoods with different rent-control levels, abstracting from the prevailing city-wide decline in criminal activity. Using detailed location-specific incident-level criminal activity data assembled from Cambridge Police Department archives for the years 1992 through 2005, we find robust evidence that rent decontrol caused overall crime to fall by 16 percent-approximately 1,200 reported crimes annually-with the majority of the effect accruing through reduced property crime. By applying external estimates of criminal victimization's economic costs, we calculate that the crime reduction due to rent deregulation generated approximately $10 million (in 2008 dollars) of annual direct benefit to potential victims. Capitalizing this benefit into property values, this crime reduction accounts for 15 percent of the contemporaneous growth in the Cambridge residential property values that is attributable to rent decontrol. Our findings establish that reductions in crime are an important part of gentrification and generate substantial economic value. They also show that standard cost-of-crime estimates are within the bounds imposed by the aggregate price appreciation due to rent decontrol.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gentrification and the Amenity Value of Crime Reductions: Evidence from Rent Deregulation

Autor¹,

Palmer²,

Pathak³

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this paper, I seek to answer part of this question by examining the relationship between demolitions and crime. Although previous research has shown that high‐rise public housing demolitions reduce crime (Aliprantis & Hartley, ), no research has examined the link between single‐family home demolitions and crime. Vacant building demolitions of single‐family homes differ from public housing demolitions in that they do not redistribute concentrations of low‐income residents to less dense areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of vacant building demolitions on crime under depopulation

Stacy

2017

Journal of Regional Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The costs of demolishing a vacant building are often justified on the grounds of crime reduction. I explore this claim by estimating the spatial and temporal effects of demolitions on reported crime in the city of Saginaw, Michigan. To do so, I estimate a model that uses within-block group variation to compare crime after a demolition occurs to before the permit for that demolition was issued. Results indicate that demolitions reduce crime by about 8 percent on the block group in question and 5 percent on nearby block groups, with the largest impact concentrated one to two months after the demolition occurs.

show abstract

“… 32 An alternative approach to checking for displacement would aggregate our data to larger geographic levels as in Freedman and Owens (2011) or sum results across areas as in Aliprantis and Hartley (2015). We choose not to take this approach for several reasons.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Going to pot? The impact of dispensary closures on crime

Chang¹,

Jacobson²

2017

Journal of Urban Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Jurisdictions that sanction medical or, more recently, recreational marijuana use often allow retail sales at dispensaries. Dispensaries are controversial as many believe they contribute to local crime. To assess this claim, we analyze the short-term mass closing of hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles. Contrary to popular wisdom, we find an immediate increase in crime around dispensaries ordered to close relative to those allowed to remain open. The increase is specific to the type of crime most plausibly deterred by bystanders, and is correlated with neighborhood walkability. We find a similar pattern of results for temporary restaurant closures due to health code violations. A likely common mechanism is that “eyes upon the street” deter some types of crime.

show abstract

Blowing it up and knocking it down: The local and city-wide effects of demolishing high concentration public housing on crime

Cited by 55 publications

References 19 publications

Gentrification and the Amenity Value of Crime Reductions: Evidence from Rent Deregulation

Gentrification and the Amenity Value of Crime Reductions: Evidence from Rent Deregulation

The effect of vacant building demolitions on crime under depopulation

Going to pot? The impact of dispensary closures on crime

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About