The influence of micro-places on the spatial patterns of property crime in Vancouver, Canada

Abstract

Research has shown that crime is concentrated at a small number of micro-places. This research has found that these spatial patterns are generalisable across different urban settings and are relatively stable over time. Despite this, little is known about the explanatory factors of crime at the micro-spatial scale. Using police incident data and land-use information obtained from the Vancouver Open-Data catalogue, zero-inflated negative binomial models are used to explain the spatial patterns of various types of property crimes at the street segment level. The results demonstrate that aspects of micro-places (multi-unit housing, restaurants (with and without liquor), and retail outlets) have a significant positive impact on these crime types at the micro-spatial level. Depending on the crime type, the strength of the relationship varies in magnitude and level of significance.