Do Larger Cities Experience Lower Crime Rates? Scaling Analysis of 758 cities in the U.S.

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.

Keywords: violent crime counts, property crime counts, population size of city, superlinear relationship, sublinear relationship, linear relationship

JEL Classification: H12, H19

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Chang, Yu Sang and Kim, Hann Earl and Jeon, Seongmin, Do Larger Cities Experience Lower Crime Rates? Scaling Analysis of 758 cities in the U.S. (February 27, 2019). Sustainability 2019, 11, 3111; doi:10.3390/su11113111, Gachon Center of Convergence Research Working paper 2019-02, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3343149 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3343149