ABSTRACT
The purpose of this introductory chapter is fourfold: 1) to show that spatial criminology is not new, 2) to show that a lot of what we know today is based on research that is almost 200 years old, 3) to provide a transition to the following chapter on social disorganization theory, and 4) to show the trajectory of ever smaller units of analysis in spatial criminology, a topic returned to in Chapter 15 .
