Abstract
Do larger cities still suffer from a higher crime rates? The scaling relationship between the number of crime counts and the population size for the maximum of 758 cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants in the United States during 1999 to 2014 was analyzed. For the total group of cities, the relation is superlinear for both violent and property crime. However, for the subgroups of top 12, top 24, and top 50 largest cities, the relations change to sublinear for both violent and property crime. Results from multivariate panel data analysis are in support of these findings. Next to population size, income per capita and population density have also influenced the outcome of crime counts. Implications from these findings will be discussed.
Highlights
What is the relationship between the crime count and population size of cities? Do larger cities always experience higher crime rates compared to smaller cities? larger cities have historically experienced higher crimes rates in the past [1,2], this situation may have changed in recent years so that very large cities may be experiencing lower crime rates compared to middle-sized cities [3,4]
All three coefficients are statistically significant at less than the 1% level. These findings indicate that the violent crime count as a function of population size is superlinear when the impact from income and density is held constant
The statistically significant coefficients of income and density are, respectively, −0.372 and −0.048. These results indicate that property crime counts as a function of population size are linear when the impact from income and density are held constant
Summary
Larger cities have historically experienced higher crimes rates in the past [1,2], this situation may have changed in recent years so that very large cities may be experiencing lower crime rates compared to middle-sized cities [3,4]. If this new trend continues, it will have a significantly positive impact on mitigating overall crime rates in the future, because an increasingly large number of people will reside in larger cities with populations of more than one million, with lower crime rates.
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