Does urbanization create higher crime rates? This is an argument that has circulated anti-development sub-urbanists for several decades. Unfortunately, nothing else could be further from the truth. Urban development, specifically regions that create a 24-hour population of mixed uses (day time commercial/mid day retail/night time residential) absolutely have the opposite effect.
Observe the following two maps of crime over the past 6 months. First we have the relatively peaceful town of Vienna, Virginia which prides itself in being a family friendly suburban town which opposes the 24 hour concept.
Next you have a comparable region elsewhere which has about the same number of crimes over the same 6 month period. What part of Fairfax is that a picture of? It isn’t, it’s Chicago. Yes that Chicago which has been in the news recently for being under the grasps of a violent summer of crime. Unfortunately labeling “Chicago” as one geographic region provides about as much accuracy as stereotyping the entire state of Virginia. Chicago is a massive city with many differing sub regions. This particular area is the most populated and busiest part of Chicago, the Loop.
So what is the big deal? They both have a minor amount of crime. Well the big deal is that the population of downtown Chicago (2 mile radius of the loop as shown) has a population of 160,000 while the population of this portion of Vienna is approximately 12,000. Therefore per capita downtown Chicago has about 1/10th the crime as the relatively safe Vienna, Virginia.
Don’t misconstrue the point of this comparison. Vienna is one of my favorite towns in Northern Virginia, and there are a lot of things that it does right. Unfortunately, one problem that Vienna does face is after 10 oclock at night there are a lot of dark and desolate parts of the town which are favorable for robberies, assaults, and drug use. In Chicago’s downtown there is always someone watching you, the area is fully populated nearly all hours of the day. In short, Chicago is not a safe place to commit crimes.
When viewed on the larger scale you find other portions of Chicago show this correlation. Where development includes single use or tract style development, in which either during the day or during the night there are portions that go without patrol and without an inherent population, one finds a far greater incidence rate of crime. Brighton, Parkway Gardens, and Oak Park show far greater violent crime rates than downtown. All of these areas share a similar land use design of subdivision or tract single use residential and are closer in characteristics to suburbs than urban regions and yet look far more bucolic than downtown. This is also observed in most metropolitan regions including in our backyard in DC where most of the crime occurs in residential regions not the commercial business district.
It is clear, atleast in these examples, that it is inaccurate to state that central cities are hot beds of crime. Even in a metropolitan region like Chicago, which currently is tackling a serious crime problem, the safety of downtown remains due to the security of the inherent population. A populated area provides passive surveillance and reduces crime when partnered with typical police patrols. Properly planned communities can retain the safety and family friendly values of suburban regions within dense urban centers by understanding the power of mixed use and vibrancy.