Paper Info
Title
Built environment and violent crime: An environmental audit approach using Google Street View.
Abstract
Recent studies empirically support the role of the built environment in inducing or hindering violent crime. Particularly, studies of the broken window theory have provided evidence that physical disorder is an environmental correlate of crime. This includes broken windows, vacant/abandoned housings, abandoned cars on street, graffiti, and decayed street lighting, among other things. Current studies are limited by the difficulty involved in collecting fine-scale quantitative environmental data. The conventional environmental audit approach, which aims to assess environmental features, is costly, time-consuming, and burdensome. In this study, we use Google Street View to study the relationship between violent crime and physical features of urban residential environment. More concretely, a Poisson regression model with spatial filtering is used to identify socio-economic correlates of violent crime. Parting from the hypothesis that omission of built environmental factors results in systematic residual pattern, we proceed to analyze the spatial filter to select sites for virtual environmental audits. A series of physical environmental factors are identified using contingency table analysis. The results provide both theoretical and practical implications for several theories of crime and crime prevention efforts.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2017.08.001
Computers, Environment and Urban Systems
Keywords
Field
DocType
Built environment,Violent crime,Spatial filtering,Environmental audit,Google Street View
Graffiti,Data science,Data mining,Built environment,Audit,Advertising,Physical disorder,Environmental data,Geography,Residential environment,Environmental audit,Crime prevention
Journal
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
66
0198-9715
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
2
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Li He1221.79
Antonio Páez210.82
Desheng Liu3244.82