ABSTRACT
From Harries, K.D. (1974). ἀ e Geography of Crime and Justice (pp. 61-88). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Studies of within-city crime patterns have been quite numerous, both in the United States and abroad. In this chapter, samples of the work that has been done are synthesized under two headings: macroenvironments and microenvironments. The former term encompasses vignettes of intraurban crime in six cities: Chicago, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., in the United States; London and Birmingham in England; and Belgrade, Yugoslavia. These vignettes suggest that cities usually possess distinctive high crime areas, which are often located in physically and economically blighted zones. A crime gradient is frequently observed, with the lowest rates in the suburbs and a peak at the center. Land use variations are in reality surrogate measures of opportunities for specific types of crime, as the discussion of Washington, D.C. illustrates. Each vignette tends to emphasize some facet of the geography of crime. For example, the role of immigrants in urban crime is discussed in relation
7.1 Intraurban Crime Patterns 155 7.2 Macroenvironments 156
7.2.1 Vignettes of Intraurban Crime 156 7.2.1.1 Chicago 156 7.2.1.2 London, England 158 7.2.1.3 Birmingham, England 161 7.2.1.4 Washington, D.C. 162 7.2.1.5 Belgrade 166 7.2.1.6 Seattle 170
7.2.2 Generalizations 172 7.3 Microenvironments 173
7.3.1 The Location of Crime 174 7.3.2 Neighborhood Characteristics and Crime Control 178
7.4 Conclusions 180
to London, Birmingham, and Belgrade, while racial differentials in crime rates are illustrated particularly vividly for Seattle. In general the vignettes show that although some underlying crime distributions-such as central area concentration-are often replicated, each city does have a more or less unique arrangement of land uses, social groups, and economic conditions, as well as a unique cultural heritage. The interaction among these and other related factors produces a spatial distribution of crime that may or may not be typical of the pattern existing in the “average” city.
