Do Larger Cities Experience Lower Crime Rates? A Scaling Analysis of 758 Cities in the U.S

Do larger cities still suffer from higher crime rates? The scaling relationship between the number of crimes and the population size for the maximum of 758 cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants in the United States from 1999 to 2014 was analyzed. For the total group of cities, the relationship is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2019-06, Vol.11 (11), p.3111
Main Authors: Chang, Yu Sang, Kim, Hann Earl, Jeon, Seongmin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bivariate analysis
Cities
Crime
Criminal statistics
Criminology
Economic models
Emissions
Evidence
Exponents
Greenhouse gases
Murders & murder attempts
Population density
Population number
Studies
Subgroups
Sustainability
Uniform Crime Reports
Violence
Violent crime
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Summary:Do larger cities still suffer from higher crime rates? The scaling relationship between the number of crimes and the population size for the maximum of 758 cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants in the United States from 1999 to 2014 was analyzed. For the total group of cities, the relationship is superlinear for both violent and property crimes. However, for the subgroups of the top 12, top 24, and top 50 largest cities, the relationship changes to sublinear for both violent and property crimes. Results from the panel data analysis are in support of these findings. Along with population size, income per capita and population density also influence the outcome of crime counts. Implications from these findings will be discussed.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su11113111