Chicago Census Tracts Research Articles

Violent Crime, Physical Inactivity, and Obesity: Examining Spatial Relationships by Racial/Ethnic Composition of Community Residents.

Violence is a public health issue that disproportionately affects communities of color in urban centers. There is limited understanding of how violent crime is associatedwith adult physical inactivity and obesity prevalence given the racial/ethnic composition of community residents. This research aimed to address this gap by examining census tract-level data in Chicago, IL. Ecological data gathered from a variety of sources were analyzed in 2020. Violent crime rate represented the number of police-reported incidents of homicide, aggravated assault, and armed robbery per 1,000 residents. Spatial error and ordinary least square regression models were evaluated to determine if violent crime rate was significant associated with prevalence (%) of adult physical inactivity and obesity among all Chicago census tracts (N = 798), majority non-Hispanic (NH) White tracts (n = 240), majority NH Black tracts (n = 280), majority Hispanic tracts (n = 169), and racially diverse tracts (n = 109). Majority was defined as ≥ 50% representation. After adjusting for socioeconomic and environmental measures (e.g., median income, grocery store availability, walkability index), violent crime rate was associated with % physical inactivity and % obesity at the census tract level in Chicago, IL (both p < 0.001). Associations were statistically significant among majority NH Black and Hispanic tracts, but not majority NH White and racially diverse tracts. Future studies should evaluate the structural drivers of violence and the influence these drivers have on adult physical inactivity and obesity risk, particularly in communities of color.

The Uneven Distribution of Medically Underserved Areas in Chicago.

Purpose: Safety net health services, such as federally funded health clinics, are interventions that aim to mitigate inequality in resource distribution, thus primarily clustered in poor areas with lack of access to health care. However, not all neighborhoods with the most needs benefit from safety net health services. In this article, we explore the distribution of a federally funded health service intervention designed to serve impoverished areas, the medically underserved areas (MUAs), and the relationship between MUA designation and neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics.Methods: We explore the spatial distribution of MUAs. The 2010 U.S. census data including 868 census tracts in Chicago were used for the analysis. We then examined the likelihood of being designated as an MUA using census tract level neighborhood demographic variables.Results: We found that the likelihood of obtaining MUA designation increases for neighborhoods with higher levels of poverty, the likelihood of being designated as an MUA begins to decline beyond the tipping point, whereas the proportion of black residents continues to increase. In census tracts that were eligible but not designated, there was a greater proportion of black residents compared with white residents (p<0.01). The census tracks also had higher mean disadvantage scores (p<0.01) and lower social capital (p<0.01). Furthermore, MUA eligible areas that were not designated as MUAs were predominantly black neighborhoods in poverty.Conclusion: Studies have documented that receiving MUA designation substantially reduces disparities in access to health care, and yet, our study finding indicates that the most racially segregated poor neighborhoods are excluded from the benefits of having such federal health safety net program. Seemingly race-neutral safety net health services may still be distributed in a way that perpetuates racial inequality in health.

Eviction and Pediatric Health Outcomes in Chicago.

According to Eviction Lab there were 6877 evictions in Chicago in 2016. The rate was "1.1%" and came out to 18.79 evictions per day in Chicago in 2016. The presence of children in a household (HH) poses a greater risk for eviction than race or gender. Census tract-level data from the Chicago Department of Public Health, the Eviction Lab and American Community Survey was used to assess the relationship between eviction and pediatric health outcomes for 653 census tracts in Chicago. Correlation matrices and linear regression models were used to evaluate the relationship between eviction and health outcomes. Regression models were adjusted for the following: (1) female-led family HH with less than a high school degree and below poverty and (2) race/ethnicity. Compared to White Non-Hispanic HH, predominantly Black and Hispanic HH had higher rates of very low birth weight (VLBW), infant mortality (IM), eviction filings, and evictions. All covariates were found to be significantly correlated (p < 0.01). Eviction filing rates and eviction rates were significant predictors for both VLBW and IM in both unadjusted and adjusted models (p < 0.05). Though we cannot conclude causality, these results suggest that census tracts which experience high rates of eviction also experience high rates of VLBW and IM and this relationship should be further investigated.

Quantile local spatial autocorrelation

This note introduces the concept of quantile local spatial autocorrelation as a special case of a local indicator of spatial association (LISA) for the situation where the variables of interest are binary. This provides additional insight into the spatial distribution of observations at the extremes of the distribution. The concept is illustrated with an analysis of local spatial clusters and outliers for health outcomes using data for 791 Chicago census tracts in 2014.

Extending Research on Neighborhoods and Crime: An Examination of Mortgage Fraud across Chicago Census Tracts

The purpose of this study is to extend research on communities and crime by assessing neighborhood variation in mortgage fraud. We use proprietary data to generate a measure of mortgage fraud for 2005 through 2008 for 793 census tracts in Chicago. We estimate maximum likelihood spatial regression models to assess the impact of tract-level structural variables and lending market characteristics on mortgage fraud. We find that concentrated disadvantage, percent black, and immigrant concentration are associated with greater levels of mortgage fraud. However, the impact of these factors is largely mediated by subprime lending. In addition, we find mortgages purchased by private entities also lead to greater levels of mortgage fraud. Contrary to expectations, changing loan values are unrelated to mortgage fraud. The findings suggest the relationship between neighborhood structural characteristics and mortgage fraud is partially due to a lack of public social control in disadvantaged minority neighborhoods. Future research should build on this study and examine a wider variety of crimes than are traditionally studied at the neighborhood level.

Housing Choice Voucher Holders and Neighborhood Crime

It is often alleged that households moving into neighborhoods with the aid of housing choice vouchers (HCVs) raise crime rates there. We use 1999–2008 quarterly data from Chicago census tracts to test this allegation with a dynamic panel model designed to overcome the challenges of omitted variable and endogeneity biases. We find no support for the proposition that growth in HCV holders leads to growth in violent crime rates, regardless of neighborhood context. We find that growth in HCV holders is positively associated with growth in property crime rates, however, in higher poverty neighborhoods or if HCVs exceed a threshold concentration.

Community Monitoring for Youth Violence Surveillance: Testing a Prediction Model

Predictive epidemiology is an embryonic field that involves developing informative signatures for disorder and tracking them using surveillance methods. Through such efforts assistance can be provided to the planning and implementation of preventive interventions. Believing that certain minor crimes indicative of gang activity are informative signatures for the emergence of serious youth violence in communities, in this study we aim to predict outbreaks of violence in neighborhoods from pre-existing levels and changes in reports of minor offenses. We develop a prediction equation that uses publicly available neighborhood-level data on disorderly conduct, vandalism, and weapons violations to predict neighborhoods likely to have increases in serious violent crime. Data for this study were taken from the Chicago Police Department ClearMap reporting system, which provided data on index and non-index crimes for each of the 844 Chicago census tracts. Data were available in three month segments for a single year (fall 2009, winter, spring, and summer 2010). Predicted change in aggravated battery and overall violent crime correlated significantly with actual change. The model was evaluated by comparing alternative models using randomly selected training and test samples, producing favorable results with reference to overfitting, seasonal variation, and spatial autocorrelation. A prediction equation based on winter and spring levels of the predictors had area under the curve ranging from .65 to .71 for aggravated battery, and .58 to .69 for overall violent crime. We discuss future development of such a model and its potential usefulness in violence prevention and community policing.

Demography, foreclosure, and crime:

The present research evaluates the possibility of spatial heterogeneity in the effects on neighborhood crime rates of both traditional demographic indicators—immigrant concentration, racial composition, socioeconomic disadvantage, and residential instability—and a contemporary aspect of housing transition—foreclosure rates—that has garnered significant attention in recent scholarship. Geographically weighted regression results indicate significant variation across Chicago census tracts in the estimates of logged percent black, immigrant context, and foreclosure for both robbery and burglary rates. The observed effects of socioeconomic disadvantage on robbery rates and residential stability on burglary rates also are found to vary across local neighborhood clusters in Chicago. Visual inspection of these effects illuminates the importance of supplementing current approaches by “thinking locally” when developing theoretical explanations and empirical models of how demographic context shapes crime rates.

Racial Differences in Networks: Do Neighborhood Conditions Matter?*

Objectives. This study examines which of five neighborhood conditions help account for racial differences in social networks.Methods. The data set is the Urban Poverty and Family Life Survey, a survey of blacks, whites, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans clustered in Chicago Census tracts, matched to 1990 Census data. I estimate HGLM models predicting five indicators of social isolation and five indicators of number of social ties as a function of race, controls, and the following neighborhood conditions: neighborhood poverty, proportion black, residential stability, ethnic heterogeneity, and population density.Results. Although initial estimates confirm the existence of racial differences in network size, most of these differences are not robust to controls for neighborhood conditions. Among the neighborhood variables, only neighborhood poverty is consistently associated with size of social networks.Conclusions. Findings suggest that while residential segregation has created conditions in which some races are more likely to live in high‐poverty neighborhoods, it is the poverty, not the racial composition, of the neighborhoods that is significantly associated with weaker social ties.

Valuing New Development in Distressed Urban Neighborhoods

We estimate the effect of design on the assessed values of new housing units in high-poverty Chicago census tracts with a parcel-based hedonic regression in which we distinguish between three urban design types: enclave, traditional neighborhood development (TND), and infill. We find that urban design significantly affects housing values, and infill housing is more highly valued than either enclave or TND housing. We also examine the influences of individual urban design features and find that residents prefer entrances that face the street, and facades constructed from the same material as adjacent buildings. They also prefer parking in front of their homes, and to be buffered from public streets. We interpret the former to be preferences for greater integration into the surrounding neighbourhood, consistent with our findings on infill.

SOFTWARE DEFAULTS AS DE FACTO REGULATION The case of the wireless internet

Today's internet presumes that individuals are capable of configuring software to address issues such as spam, security, indecent content, and privacy. This assumption is worrying – common sense and empirical evidence state that not everyone is so interested or so skilled. When regulatory decisions are left to individuals, for the unskilled the default settings are the law. This article relies on evidence from the deployment of wireless routers and finds that defaults act as de facto regulation for the poor and poorly educated. This paper presents a large sample behavioral study of how people modify their 802.11 (‘Wi-Fi’) wireless access points from two distinct sources. The first is a secondary analysis of WifiMaps.com, one of the largest online databases of wireless router information. The second is an original wireless survey of portions of three census tracts in Chicago, selected as a diversity sample for contrast in education and income. By constructing lists of known default settings for specific brands and models, we were then able to identify how people changed their default settings. Our results show that the default settings for wireless access points are powerful. Media reports and instruction manuals have increasingly urged users to change defaults – especially passwords, network names, and encryption settings. Despite this, only half of all users change any defaults at all on the most popular brand of router. Moreover, we find that when a manufacturer sets a default 96–99 percent of users follow the suggested behavior, while only 28–57 percent of users acted to change these same default settings when exhorted to do so by expert sources. Finally, there is also a suggestion that those living in areas with lower incomes and levels of education are less likely to change defaults, although these data are not conclusive. These results show how the authority of software trumps that of advice. Consequently, policy-makers must acknowledge and address the power of software to act as de facto regulation.

Retail Tobacco Outlet Density and Youth Cigarette Smoking: A Propensity-Modeling Approach

We examined whether retail tobacco outlet density was related to youth cigarette smoking after control for a diverse range of neighborhood characteristics. Data were gathered from 2116 respondents (aged 11 to 23 years) residing in 178 census tracts in Chicago, Ill. Propensity score stratification methods for continuous exposures were used to adjust for potentially confounding neighborhood characteristics, thus strengthening causal inferences. Retail tobacco outlets were disproportionately located in neighborhoods characterized by social and economic disadvantage. In a model that excluded neighborhood confounders, a marginally significant effect was found. Youths in areas at the highest 75th percentile in retail tobacco outlet density were 13% more likely (odds ratio [OR]=1.13; 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.99, 1.28) to have smoked in the past month compared with those living at the lowest 25th percentile. However, the relation became stronger and significant (OR=0.21; 95% CI=1.04, 1.41) after introduction of tract-level confounders and was statistically significant in the propensity score-adjusted model (OR = 1.20; 95% CI = 1.001, 1.44). Results did not differ significantly between minors and those legally permitted to smoke. Reductions in retail tobacco outlet density may reduce rates of youth smoking.

6. A Multivariate, Multilevel Rasch Model with Application to Self-Reported Criminal Behavior

In studying correlates of social behavior, attitudes, and beliefs, a measurement model is required to combine information across a large number of item responses. Multiple constructs are often of interest, and covariates are often multilevel (e.g., measured at the person and neighborhood level). Some item-level missing data can be expected. This paper proposes a multivariate, multilevel Rasch model with random effects for these purposes and illustrates its application to self-reports of criminal behavior. Under assumptions of conditional independence and additivity, the approach enables the investigator to calibrate the items and persons on an interval scale, assess reliability at the person and neighborhood levels, study the correlations among crime types at each level, assess the proportion of variation in each crime type that lies at each level, incorporate covariates at each level, and accommodate data missing at random. Using data on 20 item responses from 2842 adolescents ages 9 to 18 nested within 196 census tracts in Chicago, we illustrate how to test key assumptions, how to adjust the model in light of diagnostic analyses, and how to interpret parameter estimates.

The Tipping-Point Model: Prediction of Change in the Racial Composition of Cleveland, Ohio, Neighborhoods, 1940–1970

The tipping-point model of neighborhood change is tested for the years 1940–1970. The model posits that once a white area reaches a certain percentage of Negro residents the area will become completely Negro. Recent work by Steinnes (1977), who used a regression analysis of a sample of Chicago census tracts, supports the tipping-point concept. The present replication with Cleveland, Ohio, data differs from the earlier work in three ways: (1) control for sectoral growth patterns; (2) use of the entire population of Cleveland's tracts, rather than a sample of tracts, to determine whether the model is generalizable to the entire city; and (3) an expansion of the time frame of the study. The tipping-point model does not appear to be generalizable to the entire city of Cleveland. The findings suggest that social, economic, and historical factors need to be included in the model.

Fertility and Suicidal Behavior

The literature on suicide has many references to the place of the in the etiology of suicidal behavior. One tentative conclusion to be drawn from the literature is that completed and attempted suicide are related to family density (Durkheim, 1951; Lester, 1966). Durkheim presented data to suggest that married but childless women completed suicide more frequently than the unmarried of the same age. Halbwachs ( 1960), a student of Durkheim, contended that married women are guarded against suicide in direct proportion to the number of children they have. This intriguing idea has never been followed up. What are the effects of children versus no children and the number of children on the suicide potential of adults? the city of Flint it was possible ro compute a standardized fertility ratio (number of children under 5 yr. per 1,000 females aged 15 through 44 yr.), based on 1970 census data for each of the 47 census tracts. The fcrt~l~ry ratios of each census tract were correlated with the completed and attempted suicide rate for the period 1966-1975. The productmoment correlation coefficient for completed suicide and fertility was -.68 and for attempted suicide and fertility -.57. The coefficients are high (significant), and it may be concluded chat the larger the as measured by the fertility ratio, the lower the rates of completed and attempted suicide in census tract populations. Apparently, the larger the the less likely are suicidal acts by adult members of the family. Why should marriage and children insulate against acts of suicide? It is a well known fact, that the highest completed and attempted suicide rates tend to be found among the single, divorced, and widowed, whereas the lowest rates are generally associated with the married and a strong life. instance, Cavan (1928) referred to the lack of life in those census tracts in Chicago having the greatest incidence of suicide. In describing such an area, Cavan writes: For the most part they are either not married or ac least are not living with husband and wife; and they are unencumbered with Durkheim believed that the presence of children has a protective effect on the married, by demonstrating that, when marriage produces children, the co~fficient of preservation is almost doubled. Henry and Shorr (1955) concluded that the relational system of the married with children is stronger than the relational system of the unmarried. The assumption made by these writers is that a large is a vehicle for integration and regulation: children are a source of constraint. But, it can be argued that persons in some areas who are highly disaffiliated will not want to become responsible for children, nor will those who are highly integrated desire children. In sum, support is given to Durkheim's hypothesis of the relationship of suicide to number of children in the family. From the present data it appears that the fertility ratio may account in part for variation in the rates of completed and attempted suicide over census tracts in Flint.

Family Composition as a Variable in Residential Succession

Available census materials permit at least a limited investigation of the extent to which family composition is of significance in black residential succession. Census tracts in Chicago were classified by stage of residential succession, and households within these tracts were classified by age of head and presence of wife, children and other relatives of head. It appears that black younger families and those with children lead the way in black penetration, while white older families and those with children lead the white exodus. There is also evidence of some stability of family-type composition in areas undergoing racial transition. The latter may be traced to the characteristics of housing in these areas.

Family Planning in the Negro Ghettos of Chicago

1010 women aged 18-44 and living in Chicago census tracts in which the median family income was below $5500 per year in 1960 were interviewed in 1967-1968 to determine attitudes toward family planning. Absolutely no evidence was found of a fertility culture. Fertility aspirations were substantially lower than the 1959 ideals of both white and black Chicagoans. More than 1/2 regarded age 23 or older as the ideal age to get married. About 60% suggested an interval of 2 or more years as the ideal interval between marriage and the first birth. 80.5% approved moderately or strongly of family planning while 8.9% were neutral. All but a small fraction knew at least one reliable contraceptive method and knew of its reliability. A tendency existed however to underestimate the most reliable methods and overestimate the least reliable methods. Pregnancy histories reveal a high prevalence of teenage pregnancy resulting from uncontracepted premarital sex relations. Planning of the first child not the last should become a major goal among family planners. Several researchers discuss Bogues paper in a concluding section. Non-compatible ideals in individuals and/or lack of purposive rational planning may dictate a lack of contraception.

The Catholic Birth-Rate: Further Facts and Implications

The decline in the Catholic birth-rate is due in part to the fact that children of immigrants have smaller families than immigrants, since in selected Chicago census tracts which are mostly Polish or mostly Italian the rate of reproduction in immigrant families is approximately twice as great as in second-generation families. When the major portion of immigrant women pass beyond the child-bearing ages, one factor in the Catholic birth-rate decline will cease to operate. With the existing immigration law there is little replenishing of Italian and Polish immigrants of productive ages and a decidedly lower birth-rate is the result. The birth-rate in second-generation Catholic families in Chicago also declined sharply between 1920 and 1930. The rapid decline in the birth-rate among those of Polish and Italian descent is found to be applicable to both the native white and the foreign-born white, and this decline among the native white was more rapid from 1920 to 1930 than was that of the native white populati...