Poor neighborhoods often experience high rates of crime. Urban planners have tried to reduce crime in poor neighborhoods in various ways. One of these consists of efforts to disperse poverty and make neighborhoods more socioeconomically diverse. For example, current housing policies that replace public housing projects with vouchers that subsidize rent in any neighborhood are built on this idea. The assumption is that residents of socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods will form social networks and share economic, social, and cultural resources. This, in turn, is believed to help lower crime rates.
However, recent research has questioned whether crime rates will be lower in socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods, because building social networks purely based on proximity may be difficult for people who do not share common beliefs, attitudes, and habits. The question then becomes: What is more important in managing crime -- dispersing poverty or maintaining strong social networks? This longitudinal study examines the process of social network formation and the conditions under which this process reduces, or fails to reduce, crime. The study follows former public housing residents to examine their patterns of social network formation and how variation in the degree to which these residents become part of their new communities affects their level of criminal victimization and fear of crime. In addition, the study examines neighborhoods that become home to former public housing residents to determine whether crime rates are influenced by changes in neighborhood demographics.
Broader Impacts Across the country, housing authorities are replacing public housing projects with voucher-based housing subsidies. This research may help provide a better understanding of the effects of housing policy on crime, allowing housing authorities and law enforcement to work together to create safer communities nationwide. In addition, this study will be instrumental in teaching and training undergraduate and graduate students at a large urban university with a diverse student population, thereby contributing to the recruitment of social scientists from underrepresented groups and strengthening the science pipeline.
Poor neighborhoods often experience high rates of crime. Federally-funded public housing is one type of poor neighborhood that has historically experienced serious crime problems. Recently, housing policy makers have attempted to lessen this crime problem by changing the physical nature of public housing, replacing project-based housing with vouchers that subsidize rents in any neighborhood. These policy changes are built on the ideas that (1) given options, people needing housing assistance will seek out socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods; and (2) once in these socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods, people will develop diverse social networks that will allow them to share economic, social, and cultural resources with those who are not living in poverty. This, in turn, is believed to help lower crime rates. Existing research does not tell us, however, if crime rates will be lower in these socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods. Building social networks purely based on proximity may be difficult for people who do not share common beliefs, attitudes, and habits. In this study, we assessed which is more important in managing crime -- dispersing poverty or maintaining strong social networks? To answer these questions, this study followed former public housing residents and examined how variation in the degree to which these residents became part of their new communities affected their level of criminal victimization and fear of crime. In addition, the study examined neighborhoods that became home to former public housing residents to determine how changes in neighborhood demographics affected rates of crime. The primary product of this study is a comprehensive dataset that includes four types of important information (collected as part of this study and two prior studies funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health). First, the dataset includes survey responses of the public housing residents in our sample before they moved out of project-based housing, twelve months after they moved, and twenty-four months after they moved. Data over time allow us to examine the short and long-term effects of social networks on crime. Second, it includes government data, from the Census, police departments, and other public sources, that describe the neighborhoods residents moved out of and into. Third, there are surveys of current residents in the neighborhoods our sample members move into to provide an objective evaluation of the neighborhoods. And finally, there are audits of the amenities in the neighborhoods that we conducted. There are no similar data publicly available at this time, and we will make this dataset available through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research for use by researchers, policy-makers, and others who are interested. The most important broader impact of this study is that it provides a better understanding of the effects of housing policy on crime, allowing housing authorities and law enforcement to work together to create safer communities nationwide. In addition, this study has been instrumental in teaching and training undergraduate and graduate students at a large urban university with a diverse student population. Over the course of study close to 50 graduate and undergraduate students worked on it as either part-time paid research assistants or for-credit interns. Of the student who have graduated, many have gone on to graduate programs or secured positions as social science researchers, thereby contributing to the recruitment of social scientists from underrepresented groups and strengthening the science pipeline.
