New Parochialism, Sources of Community Investment, and the Control of Street Crime

Abstract

Research Summary We examined Seattle, Washington's Neighborhood Matching Fund (NMF), a unique neighborhood improvement program that provides city funding for projects organized within neighborhoods. We found an inverse relationship between NMF funding and violent crime rates, a relationship that is stronger in poorer neighborhoods. The relationship also is stronger as funds accumulate within the neighborhoods over time. These findings suggest that investment and neighborhood participation can have both short‐term and long‐term crime reduction effects. Policy Implications The Neighborhood Matching Fund program is associated with significant reductions in crime, even though the program and its projects are not aimed specifically at crime reduction. This observation suggests that policies that encourage neighbors to interact with each other and that facilitate interactions and physical improvements can help reduce crime by improving neighborhood conditions and social relationships. Investments in neighborhoods by the city also can help counteract the negative effects of private disinvestment.

Making or Breaking Neighborhoods

“…Ramey and Shrider () join other recent scholarship in highlighting the ways public social control can contribute to lower levels of crime (Bursik, , ; Bursik and Grasmick, ; Squires and Kubrin, ; Vélez et al., ). First, favorable relationships and resultant capital help to strengthen neighborhood collectives that orchestrate efforts to reduce crime.…”

“…Ramey and Shrider's () study and related work demonstrate for criminologists a somewhat underappreciated fact: City policies matter especially for traditionally marginalized communities. On the downside, urban research has documented how cities can marginalize neighborhoods and thwart their ability to organize collectively against crime.…”

“…Or would projects like this only work in areas that have at least some institutional capacity for community building? Ramey and Shrider () find that matching funds are especially associated with crime reduction in disadvantaged neighborhoods. But not all disadvantaged neighborhoods are the same.…”

“…Recently, community and crime scholars have begun to appreciate more fully this insight and have explored how external capital investments, ranging from bank lending to resources for public services, make or break the ability of neighborhoods to control crime (Peterson and Krivo, ; Squires and Kubrin, ; Vélez, Lyons, and Boursaw, ). Ramey and Shrider's (, this issue) article is a welcome addition to this growing body of research on external neighborhood investments and crime. Ramey and Shrider assess the influence of capital investments from Seattle's unique Neighborhood Matching Fund (NMF) program on neighborhood crime levels from 1992 to 2007.…”

New Parochialism and Community Dynamics

“…Patrick Carr's () new parochialism is a relatively recent theoretical development to understand how informal social control may play out in contemporary communities facing some of these challenges. Ramey and Shrider (, this issue) test the impact of the policy implications of new parochialism in their exploration of Seattle's Neighborhood Matching Fund (NMF) program.…”