Local Investment and Code Enforcement as Potential Moderators to the Criminogenic Effects of Commercial Places
Evidence from Six U.S. Cities
Arthur Acolin (University of Washington), Marie Skubak Tillyer (University of Texas at San Antonio), & Rebecca Walter (University of Washington)
Commercial places are important amenities for any community. Communities and their residents need access to commercial places that provide core goods and services (e.g., retail stores, banks, grocery stores, restaurants). These place types, however, are often associated with higher levels of crime, though there is within-place type variability. In “Do Investment and Code Enforcement Mitigate the Criminogenic Effects of Commercial Places on City Streets?” we examine whether investment and code enforcement actions moderate the criminogenic impact of commercial places. We use street segment level data from six large U.S. cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Antonio and Seattle) from 2008 to 2018 to estimate whether indicators of real estate investment (e.g., building permit activity and code violations) are associated with lower reported crimes at core commercial places.
As shown in Figure 1, we find that commercial places are positively associated with crime on street segments (Panel A), while building permits and code enforcement are negatively associated with crime (Panel B). Moreover, building permits significantly temper the criminogenic effects of commercial places (Panel C). The moderating effect of code enforcement on the relationship between commercial places and crime, however, is inconsistent across cities and crime types.
Figure 1: Effects of Commercial Places, Building Permits, and Code Enforcement Citations on Total Crime
Panel A: Main Effects of Commercial Places
Panel B: Main Effects of Building Permits and Code Enforcement Citations
Panel C: Interaction Effects of Commercial Places with Building Permits and Code Enforcement Citations
The finding that commercial places are positively associated with crime are consistent with existing studies. What this study adds to the literature is evidence that physical property investments can mitigate the criminogenic effects of commercial places. The positive relationship between commercial places and crime was significantly weakened on street segments with more building permits in each of the six cities with the exception of Seattle. This has implications for community and economic development policies, as well as for public safety. The findings suggest that incentives offered by local government for commercial property improvements may serve as a mechanism to enhance public safety. Examples of local government programs that provide financial support to businesses for property improvements include Atlanta’s Storefront Redesign Program, Denver’s Business Façade Improvement Program, and Cleveland’s Storefront Renovation Program. Increasing the number and scope of these types of programs may reduce the criminogenic effects of commercial places.
Code enforcement did not consistently moderate the criminogenic effects of commercial places across cities and crime types, with code violations associated with lower criminogenic effects in some cases and no significant difference or higher criminogenic effects in others. Unlike building permits, which likely reliably represent physical property investments across cities, code enforcement policies and practices vary considerably across cities, and may be less reliable in producing place-based improvements. Future research is needed to investigate code enforcement procedures and implementation, and to assess how these practices vary across places. This includes understanding the primary objectives of enforcement agencies, how code enforcement is monitored and enforced, the barriers to enforcing regulations effectively, how enforcement efforts are measured and evaluated, and how resources for code enforcement are allocated. Recent initiatives are directly linked to public safety such as Philadelphia’s legislation to impose a curfew on “nuisance” businesses such as some shops, takeout restaurants, and bodegas. The effectiveness of such approaches requires evaluation of implementation and potential crime displacement effects. Further investigation is required to uncover the specific strategies that may be effective in using code enforcement to mitigate the criminogenic effects of commercial places, as compared to those that do not.
Overall, the findings from our study and other studies showing the link between place-based investments and decreased crime point to the potential for government interventions to enhance public safety that fall outside of traditional policing strategies. Such interventions have the potential to reduce crime while delivering broader community benefits through improvements to the built environment. Partnership between local communities and researchers to evaluate the impact of interventions and their implementations can generate evidence about what programs work to decrease crime through non-policing place-based interventions, under what conditions, and how they can be targeted to maximize public safety benefits in a cost-effective way.
Arthur Acolin is an associate professor in the Runstad Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington. His research focuses on real estate, housing economics, tenure choice, and international housing comparisons.
Marie Skubak Tillyer is a professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research focuses on victimization, violence, and crime prevention.
Rebecca J. Walter is an associate professor in the Runstad Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on housing policy, housing markets, and crime and place.