Title: Land-Use Zoning Shown to Affect Crime Rates in Los Angeles | RAND
Headings: Land-Use Zoning Shown to Affect Crime Rates in Los Angeles
Land-Use Zoning Shown to Affect Crime Rates in Los Angeles
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Content: Researchers say the finding suggests that efforts to reduce crime by introducing commercial activities in residential areas are probably misguided. The study also found that when neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles undergo some change in zoning, mostly toward residential uses, crime drops more than it does in neighborhoods with comparable crime trends before the zoning change. In these cases, crime dropped by about 7 percent on average, mostly as a result of fewer automobile-related property crimes. This finding is consistent with the apparent crime-reducing effects of residential development that was found in the first study, researchers say. “Our findings suggest that strategic decisions about zoning could be part of the overall crime prevention strategy in urban areas,” MacDonald said. “ However, our findings are based on one city and should be replicated by additional studies.” Researchers suggest it would be good to test the study's conclusions with a small-scale experiment in which a limited set of proposed zoning changes could be permitted randomly to see if the benefits of zoning changes reduce crime in neighborhoods. The city blocks examined in the study were drawn from the communities of Boyle Heights, Highland Park, Hollywood, San Pedro, South Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles, West Adams and Westlake. Support for the study was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Public Health Law Research program. Other authors of the study are Ricky Bluthenthal of the University of Southern California and J. Scott Ashwood of RAND.