ABSTRACT
Not only is crime highly concentrated at places, these crime places are concentrated within neighborhoods. This has major implications for how one regulates owners of high crime locations. The “concentration of concentration” is due to property managers making decisions within an opportunity structure that reduces managers’ costs from crime. Three factors describe this opportunity structure. First, the economics of real-estate and property. Second, the legacy and ongoing discrimination against minority renters and place users. Third, political decisions about how land is used. That is the principal argument of this chapter. A secondary argument is that these factors create crime attractors and crime generators in different areas. Effective place-based crime prevention needs to account for the opportunity structure of bad place management.
