Crime, housing tenure, and economic deprivation: Evidence from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

ABSTRACT

This study examines the determinants of 6 types of crime in Milwaukee, a Rust Belt city that has experienced significant deindustrialization in recent decades. Inner-city areas, as well as a unique low-density area on the city’s northwest side with many rental units, might lack the social control necessary to reduce crime. Creating an index of deprivation at the block group level for 2014, we find it to be high in the central city and on the northwest side and correlated with crime, income, and other socioeconomic variables. Crime hot spots, with a few notable exceptions, are located in 2 central-city areas that are poorer and less White than other block groups. A spatial lag regression model shows that deprivation primarily drives arson and assaults, and the share of renters is shown to increase thefts and robberies in low-income areas but not high-income areas.

Acknowledgments

The helpful comments of participants at the 2016 Midwest Economics Association meetings, as well as those of anonymous referees, are greatly appreciated.

Notes

1. Though it is possible that new condominium construction and conversion (such as Milwaukee’s Third Ward and Brewers’ Hill neighborhoods) might cause the ownership share, median income, and social control to increase in formerly low-income and low-density areas, this is assumed to be a relatively small share of the total and also independent of crime rates.

2. Certain alternative deprivation measures include weighting each component by its own standard deviation or (see Krivo & Peterson, 1996) Z-scores and deviations from the mean for each variable. Here, we include major socioeconomic variables and exclude measures of family status. Morris and Carstairs (1991) compare a number of alternative approaches, and Salmond and Crampton (1998) use principal component analysis to measure deprivation in New Zealand, in separate studies of public health.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Scott W. Hegerty

Scott W. Hegerty is an Associate Professor of Economics at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. He received his BS in History from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire and MA and PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He has also studied urban geography and GIS at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and Northeastern Illinois University. His research interests include statistical methods applied to inner-city areas in the industrial Midwest. His recent publications include Annals of Regional Science and the Journal of Urban Affairs.