Land Use Influencing the Spatial Distribution of Urban Crime: A Case Study of Szczecin, Poland
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Spatial Management Unit, Faculty of Geosciences, University of Szczecin, Mickiewicza 18 Street, 70-383 Szczecin, Poland
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Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, E-104 Howe-Russell-Kniffen Geoscience Complex, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Wolfgang Kainz
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2017, 6(3), 74; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi6030074
Received: 31 December 2016
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Revised: 20 February 2017
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Accepted: 1 March 2017
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Published: 8 March 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Spatial and Spatiotemporal Crime Analytics)
This paper falls into a common field of scientific research and its practical applications at the interface of urban geography, environmental criminology, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The purpose of this study is to identify types of different land use which influence the spatial distribution of a set of crime types at the intra-urban scale. The originality of the adopted approach lies in its consideration of a large number of different land use types considered as hypothetically influencing the spatial distribution of nine types of common crimes, geocoded at the address-level: car crimes, theft of property—other, residential crimes, property damage, commercial crimes, drug crimes, burglary in other commercial buildings, robbery, and fights and battery. The empirical study covers 31,319 crime events registered by the Police in the years 2006–2010 in the Polish city of Szczecin with a population ca. 405,000. Main research methods used are the GIS tool “multiple ring buffer” and the “crime location quotient (LQC)”. The main conclusion from this research is that a strong influence of land use types analyzed is limited to their immediate surroundings (i.e., within a distance of 50 m), with the highest concentration shown by commercial crimes and by the theft of property—other crime type. Land use types strongly attracting crime in this zone are alcohol outlets, clubs and discos, cultural facilities, municipal housing, and commercial buildings. In contrast, grandstands, cemeteries, green areas, allotment gardens, and depots and transport base are land use types strongly detracting crime in this zone.
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Keywords:
urban crime; land use; multiple ring buffer; crime location quotient
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MDPI and ACS Style
Sypion-Dutkowska, N.; Leitner, M. Land Use Influencing the Spatial Distribution of Urban Crime: A Case Study of Szczecin, Poland. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2017, 6, 74. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi6030074
AMA Style
Sypion-Dutkowska N, Leitner M. Land Use Influencing the Spatial Distribution of Urban Crime: A Case Study of Szczecin, Poland. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. 2017; 6(3):74. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi6030074
Chicago/Turabian StyleSypion-Dutkowska, Natalia, and Michael Leitner. 2017. "Land Use Influencing the Spatial Distribution of Urban Crime: A Case Study of Szczecin, Poland" ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information 6, no. 3: 74. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi6030074
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