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Title: Crime and urban flight revisited: The effect of the 1990s drop in crime on cities

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2010

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Abstract: The flight from blight and related literatures on urban population changes and crime have primarily consideredtimes of high or increasing crime rates. Perhaps the most cited recent work in this area, Cullenand Levitt (1999), does not extend through 1990s, a decade during which crime rates declined almostcontinuously, to levels that were lower than experienced in decades. This paper examines whether suchdeclines contributed to city population growth and retention (abated flight). Through a series of populationgrowth models that attempt to identify causality through several strategies (including instrumentalvariables) we find at best weak evidence that overall city growth is affected by changes in crime. We findno evidence that growth is differentially sensitive to reductions in crime, as compared to increases.Focusing more narrowly on within MSA migration, residential decisions that are more likely to be sensitiveto local conditions, we do find evidence supporting abatement of flight that is, lower levels ofcrime in central cities in the 1990s are associated with lower levels of migration to the suburbs. Thisgreater ability to retain residents already in the city does not appear to be accompanied by a greater ability to attract new households from the suburbs, or from outside of the metropolitan area.

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Authors: O'Regan, Katherine; Gould Ellen, Ingrid

Periodical (Full): Journal of Urban Economics

Issue:

Volume: 68

Pages: 247-259

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Crime and Deviance

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