Reducing Urban Crime: A Multi-city Assessment of the Benefits of Urban Forests (00-DG-11244225-343)

This project was desgined to study if vegetation density in urban settings was a determinant of crime rates.

Finding ways to reduce crime is one of the most important public policy challenges facing our nation today. Reducing crime has proven extremely difficult and tremendously expensive. Yet a recent study of a Chicago neighborhood by Kuo and Sullivan found clear evidence that urban forests are associated with lower levels of crime. Is it possible that urban forests help create neighborhoods in which individuals are more likely to defend their nearby surroundings against crime? Or was the evidence from Chicago limited to theparticular neighborhood in which the study took place?

To find out, we examined the relationship between the density of vegetation (grass and trees) surrounding 463 apartment buildings across ten neighborhoods in three cities: Chicago, Detroit, and Houston. We used satellite images to measure vegetation and three years of Part I FBI crime statistics for each apartment building as the measure of crime. Did the density of trees predict the amount of crime? Yes, greater tree density was associated with lower levels of violent crime. Tree density was not related to property crime. We also found that large grassy areas without trees were associated with higher incidences of property crime. The results of this study reinforce and extend the earlier findings that urban forests are associated with lower levels of crime.

There were three primary objectives:

1. Measure and document the impact of urban forests on Property crime, Violent crime, and Total crimes in a variety of urban neighborhoods across a number of cities.

2. Disseminate the results of this work to policy-makers, foresters, scientists, and the general public.

3. Build new partnerships in support of urban forestry.

Attachments

Click here to download this final grant report as a PDF.

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