The Crime Deterring Effect of Mixed Use Neighborhoods

Emily Badger, writing for The Atlantic Cities, on the relative safety of different neighborhood configurations:

The commercial-only areas had the highest crime rates – 45 percent higher – when compared to similar blocks that included residences. The researchers also found that neighborhoods experiencing a change in zoning, typically to add residences to a commercial area, saw a 7 percent drop in crime thanks mostly to a decline in automobile theft and break-ins.

The study confirms what intuition suggests - mixed uses provide more “eyes on the street” which is one of the biggest factors in deterring crime. A street that is always occupied by upstanding citizens stands much less chance of suffering from excessive rates of crime than one that sits relatively vacant for half the day.