Assessing Resident Perceptions of Physical Disorder on Perceptions of Crime
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper investigates the impact of neighborhood physical disorder on crime perception. In particular, it considers the role of vacant lots, vacant buildings, and overgrown vegetation in evaluating crime perception in terms of frequency or magnitude of crime events.
The research is properly developed: the introduction offers a general overview of the current situation and the research development on fear of crime, highlighting the concept of ‘physical disorder’. However, additional important sources are suggested for integration:
- Alper, M., & Chappell, A. T. (2012). Untangling Fear of Crime: A Multi-theoretical Approach to Examining the Causes of Crime-Specific Fear. Sociological Spectrum, 33, 346-363.
- Barton, M. S., Weil, F., Jackson, M., & Hickey, D. (2017). An Investigation of the Influence of the Spatial Distribution of Neighborhood Violent Crime on Fear of Crime. Crime & Delinquency, 63(13), 1757-1776.
The three main research questions are clearly stated at the end of the paragraph (page 3). I suggest to strictly follow the same order/logic in the conclusions as well (and not just in the results), thus giving greater clarity to the paper.
Methods and data sources are deeply described, even if the sample characteristics and the sample size represent important weaknesses of the research (as pointed out in the limitations section). As a consequence, the scientific soundness and the results are not particularly significant despite the clear and in-depth analysis developed. Moreover, extensive justification for the decision to code Lakeshore as the reference neighborhood variable and for the decision to not include a question about social disorder in the survey have been provided. The ‘analytical strategy’ paragraph provides a complete description of the ordinal logistic regression, which was applied to assess the impact of perceptions of neighborhood disorder on perceptions of crime.
The results are well-presented following the original research question structure, but they are not particularly significant. Their analysis doesn’t bring to an identification of which attributes of the built environment may influence residents' perceptions of crime and disorder, maybe – as correctly stated by the author(s) – for the multidimensionality of the concepts and their different possible meanings to respondents. Moreover, some results could have been significant or at least could have opened new scenarios, but the sample size and characteristics don’t make the overall research remarkable.
The limitations and the conclusion paragraphs properly describe the limit of the research and address new further development.
Clear images and tables.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript ID: socsci-2139777
Assessing Resident Perceptions of Physical Disorder on Perceptions of Crime
Generally, this is a well-written piece that draws upon suitable references. The manuscript is interesting to read however my main concerns are in relation to the originality of the findings – what is unique about this study? – and the structure of the manuscript. The methods section should be addressed in order to establish a logical flow. Below, I have provided some more specific comments about the manuscript:
Structure
Page 8 – paragraph beginning “our crime measures are informed by recent research that calls for…” – this paragraph seems very long for a methods section. Would parts of it be better placed within your introduction/ review of literature?
On page 8 and page 9, you begin to describe results from analysis that you conducted. Would this be better placed within your results section? Is it necessary/ usual to include a section titled “Analytical Strategy”.
On page 9 where you state: “For the neighbourhood variable, we coded Lakeshore as the referent for five reasons” – could this perhaps be added as a footnote or phrased more succinctly? I found this section of the manuscript to be difficult to follow.
On page 10, is the justification “this is an appropriate estimate technique given the ordinal nature…’’ necessary? If so, it should be commented upon within the methods section or as a footnote. The same applies for the segment: “Another advantage of ordinal logistic regression is…”
Stylistic points
On page 3, the third paragraph could be more closely linked to your research question(s). The segment beginning “While vacant properties may also encourage property crime” appeared to be redundant or at least not clear (it could be removed?).
Likewise, on page 5, in regards to the sentence starting “our overall approach involved the combination of engaged observations…” – what exactly does this mean? Why did you need to experience the daily routines of participants in order to answer your research question(s)?
Also, I was unsure what was meant by the commentary on “ontological gerrymandering” on page 10. Is this commentary necessary? If so, it should be made clearer.
Referencing/ Citations
There were instances where it seemed that your referencing could be improved by citing a wider variety of literature and/ or more up-to-date literature. An example would be the third paragraph on page 2. Some of this literature, although relevant, does not give a comprehensive understanding of more recent research into physical disorder and perceptions of crime. Some examples of fear of crime literature that you might consider including are: Tseloni (2007), Kohm (2009) Gill et al. (2014).
Should there be a citation where you mention the Broken Windows theory on page 10?
Other points
In order to better understand the study data that you collected, is there scope to provide more information on recorded levels of crime [for the crime types that you are interested in] perhaps using open crime data? For example, does the Bywater/ Marigny area experience 7 times more violent crime than Lakeshore?
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript ID: socsci-2139777
Assessing Resident Perceptions of Physical Disorder on Perceptions of Crime
2nd Review
I have read the response from the author(s) and the revised manuscript and I have the following comments to make:
My main concern remains in relation to the structure of the manuscript, in particular the presentation of the methods section. Whilst it is commendable that you seek to provide a detailed description of your methodology, this section currently spans six pages where usually it should be one page or less. As a result, this interrupts the flow of your manuscript and detracts from a concise understanding of what your methods were, how they allowed you to answer your research question(s) and whether there were ethical considerations.
Could some of the content within your methodology be presented as footnotes?
Likewise, your limitations could be greatly reduced. It is encouraging that you are transparent about the limitations of your research and that you reflect critically about them however a long list of limitations tends to detract from the credibility of research.
Would it be possible to summarise your limitations in a couple of brief paragraphs?
I think that the authors have made clearer the contribution of this paper.
Spelling/ Grammar: Page 14 – “Residents of the Lower 9th were less like than Lakeshore residents to perceive and increase in crime.”
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have largely acted upon the suggestions that I made. Some fine-tuning in relation to the presentation of methods and results could further improve the quality of this manuscript.
