Violent Crime Trends by “Side” of City

As promised, here are the first time-series data graphs, the average month by month violent crime index for the entire period for which I have collected/processed data.   This bird’s eye view shows a mellow wave that corresponds well to the seasons.  Say what you will about Chicago in February, it’s the safest time of year!



Now let’s break this single line down into several based on “side” of the city.  Firstly, here is how I defined the “sides”:

And this is the breakdown:

The placement of these lines relative to each other is hardly surprising given the territories they encompass on the crime map.  There is a fair degree of arbitrariness  is defining  geographical “sides”  at all, and putting the borders as I have was largely a complete judgment call on my part.  Sure, I based it on some level of rationality.  I think it’s fair to say that somewhere between 75th St. and 79th St., for example, you’re far enough south to warrant being on the “Far South” side.  After all, if you were that far north of Madison, you’d be in Evanston.

As a bit of an aside and a matter of forewarning, I’m going to try to keep this and blog posts generally as free of statistical gibberish as possible to keep this accessible.  I’m going to as a matter of policy provide the barest minimum of explanation of the stats in the blog posts.  I will hyperlink the concepts to other sites for those who want to read further as well as posting the hard numbers at the bottom of the posts.  I am also turning off the moderation settings in the comments, so any real stats geeks who happen to be reading can take me to task for my amateurish methodology.

Back to the graph.  It appears from the graph like the high crime areas also have more variation while the low crime areas are relatively constant.  This is mostly (but not entirely) an illusion based on the range of numbers the graph is showing.    There are certainly larger swings of crime in high crime areas in absolute numbers, but not really as a percentage of total crime.  Using the Coefficient of Variation to take this into account, the highest crime South Side has a CoV of about 20.4%, the highest of the bunch.  The second highest-crime West Side has the second lowest CoV of about 15.7%.  So in actuality, taking into account that there is just more crime in certain places than others, it really doesn’t vary that much more between the various areas mapped here.  They all sort of, as we saw in the first graph, roll with the seasons.

Data:

	Cent.	N.	N.W.	Far N.W.	W.	S.W.	S.	Far S.
Mean	43.32	19.00	26.44	14.23	70.87	25.54	75.04	47.20
Standard Deviation	7.47	3.36	4.05	2.44	11.14	3.92	15.30	8.25
Coefficent of Variation	17.24%	17.71%	15.31%	17.16%	15.71%	15.35%	20.39%	17.48%

Violent Crime Map, edited once again.

In my perpetual quest to walk the line between readability and informativeness, I have divided the colors into groups, roughly modeled after their electromagnetic frequencies, and then created four subdivisions within each color group.    I think the added level of complication is worth it.  There are the shades of purple on the north, which should come as no surprise.  The blues on the northwest and southwest sides almost form a ring around the West Side red zone in Garfield Park.  The greens interestingly seem to signal transitionary areas.   That is, they are bordered on either side by decent and decidedly dangerous areas.   A significant question is whether the crime rate varies uniformly over these areas or changes rapidly somewhere in the middle, with the side bordering on safe areas being itself also safe and the area bordering on the dangerous areas also itself being dangerous.  I suspect it is, more often than not, the latter, judging by my various ill-advised bike rides throughout this fair city.   I have posted the various VC Indexes below the map.  The average for the city is at about 528, which is between the darkest and second darkest green on the map.

And the data:

Comm Area VC Edison Park 44.28686 Norwood Park 49.00007 Forest Glen 57.48499 OHare 69.6598 Mount Greenwood 82.63223 Jefferson Park 105.153 Dunning 105.6732 North Park 116.6262 North Center 138.1757 Beverly 144.0694 Montclare 148.0778 Lincoln Square 149.3367 Portage Park 157.8527 Edgewater 161.9378 Albany Park 168.9074 Clearing 174.0806 Lincoln Park 174.5109 Lake View 179.3639 Bridgeport 180.1214 Irving Park 181.0791 West Ridge 185.4949 Hyde Park 217.5492 Hegewisch 223.2749 East Side 232.0843 Garfield Ridge 237.0339 Uptown 247.0979 West Elsdon 279.7194 Lower West Side 288.6189 West Lawn 290.3425 Avondale 295.498 McKinley Park 298.2283 Brighton Park 309.3131 Logan Square 310.0839 Near North Side 313.2287 South Lawndale 322.2777 Kenwood 325.3636 Belmont Cragin 328.1414 West Town 339.2626 Hermosa 339.594 Rogers Park 341.6309 Armour Square 373.6478 Douglas 383.4679 Ashburn 386.6232 Archer Heights 391.0434 Gage Park 396.4393 Near South Side 419.1248 Oakland 464.0129 Morgan Park 467.6648 Pullman 541.2687 Calumet Heights 569.624 Near West Side 587.5236 South Deering 629.5593 New City 680.6183 Washington Heights 691.9897 Loop 754.428 Grand Boulevard 772.8288 Chicago Lawn 805.917 Humboldt Park 849.7532 Riverdale 856.7843 Burnside 872.367 Austin 890.2048 South Shore 892.1938 South Chicago 905.1898 West Pullman 907.0116 Avalon Park 925.9841 Auburn Gresham 988.0668 Roseland 1025.911 Chatham 1093.954 North Lawndale 1179.835 Woodlawn 1181.694 Washington Park 1346.766 Greater Grand Crossing 1362.73 West Englewood 1404.563 Englewood 1449.434 West Garfield Park 1477.607 East Garfield Park 1606.766 Fuller Park 1861.264 AVERAGE 528.6458

And We’re Back

Despite the lack of activity on this blog, the Chicago Crime Project has been ongoing.  Specifically, I have continued to collect dataand have been improving the method of interpreting the data.  As you may have noticed, the data we were dealing with before was all aggregate (i.e the total amount of various crimes in various areas), which is fine as far as it goes (and when we only had six months of data).  Now, however, I have two years of data and the time is here to start doing fund and informative things with time series.  There will be day to day charts on all manner of issues as we move forward.  First, however, is an update of the famous violent crime and property crime maps.  They are not only more readable and visually pleasing than the old ones, but I have abandoned the relative ranking I used to do (i.e. the 10 best neighborhoods are one color, the next 10 best another, and so on) and have adopted absolute ranking (i.e. neighborhoods below x crimes per capita are one color, neighborhoods above x but below 2x crimes per capita are another, and so forth).  This, I believe, will give a more accurate picture of crime in the city.  Note that violent crime has a more fine-grained spectrum than property crime.  This is because, for better or worse, there is a much richer and varying fabric of violent crime than property crime in this city.  I have also tweaked slightly the formula I use to calculate the Violent Crime Index.  More on this later.  Now, the maps:

VIOLENT CRIME:

PROPERTY CRIME:

Chicago Crime Presentation and Paper

John and I began researching Chicago Crime and its relationship with demographic factors as students in the Empirical Methods of the Law class taught by Professors Ulen, Robbenolt, and Lawless at the University of Illinois College of Law. The class required a final presentation to the class and a final paper. The presentation can be downloaded by clicking on this link and the paper can be downloaded at this link.

The multivariate regressions in the paper are better thought out than the multivariate regressions in the presentation. The presentation also presents findings are more topics; however, the paper will be easier to follow given its explanations of the findings.

Violent Crimes and Median Rents

At long last, here is the promised value-for-the-money map.  Essentially, everything low ranked (purple/blues) has low median rent relative to the violent crime.  The middle rankings have violent crime rankings well reflected in the median rent, and the reds are high violent crime relative to the median rent.

VIOLENT CRIME/MEDIAN RENT RELATIVE RANK MAP:

And here’s the corresponding table.  Those who are observant may notice that the “Value for $” figure is nothing more than the median rent rank minus the violent crime rank.  I tried many fancier methods, but this seems like the most crisp and effective way of determining how much daylight there is between the rent and violent crime in a neighborhood.  A discussion of the results follows:

CA #	Community Area	Violent Crime	V.C. Rank	Med. Rent	M.R. Rank	Value for $	Value Rank
34	Armour Square	307.34	27	351	74	47	1
31	Lower West Side	341.84	32	395	69	37	2
52	East Side	278.02	24	434	60	36	3
60	Bridgeport	227.06	19	456	54	35	4
30	South Lawndale	367.11	37	388	72	35	5
58	Brighton Park	323.78	30	433	61	31	6
36	Oakland	434.11	45	252	76	31	7
55	Hegewisch	271.23	23	465	52	29	8
59	McKinley Park	298.58	26	452	55	29	9
13	North Park	146.06	7	567	33	26	10
74	Mount Greenwood	136.13	6	589	25	19	11
50	Pullman	690.62	49	397	68	19	12
51	South Deering	717.84	51	393	70	19	13
64	Clearing	167.13	10	584	28	18	14
14	Albany Park	198.45	14	581	31	17	15
38	Grand Boulevard	959.12	57	357	73	16	16
54	Riverdale	1047.77	62	211	77	15	17
33	Near South Side	635.33	48	422	62	14	18
15	Portage Park	151.74	9	601	21	12	19
16	Irving Park	192.91	12	596	22	10	20
17	Dunning	115.98	5	636	14	9	21
65	West Lawn	284.69	25	561	34	9	22
35	Douglas	523.31	47	452	56	9	23
61	New City	813.91	54	408	63	9	24
9	Edison Park	33.16	1	678	9	8	25
11	Jefferson Park	115.76	4	648	12	8	26
21	Avondale	308.35	28	561	35	7	27
63	Gage Park	405.43	44	473	50	6	28
10	Norwood Park	43.30	2	714	7	5	29
12	Forest Glen	84.05	3	709	8	5	30
56	Garfield Ridge	368.46	38	520	42	4	31
18	Montclare	196.86	13	623	16	3	32
4	Lincoln Square	173.32	11	640	13	2	33
77	Edgewater	212.28	18	604	20	2	34
3	Uptown	362.96	35	541	37	2	35
46	South Chicago	996.96	60	437	59	-1	36
29	North Lawndale	1418.64	69	402	67	-2	37
37	Fuller Park	2985.97	77	342	75	-2	38
76	Ohare	149.23	8	746	5	-3	39
62	West Elsdon	314.58	29	588	26	-3	40
19	Belmont Cragin	336.97	31	585	27	-4	41
22	Logan Square	356.03	33	584	29	-4	42
42	Woodlawn	1455.84	70	403	66	-4	43
68	Englewood	1895.85	75	391	71	-4	44
20	Hermosa	389.14	41	545	36	-5	45
2	West Ridge	207.56	17	657	10	-7	46
72	Beverly	232.55	22	632	15	-7	47
40	Washington Park	1543.14	71	408	64	-7	48
75	Morgan Park	500.69	46	541	38	-8	49
41	Hyde Park	227.63	20	656	11	-9	50
5	North Center	204.22	16	719	6	-10	51
47	Burnside	857.91	55	490	45	-10	52
53	West Pullman	1108.94	63	459	53	-10	53
57	Archer Heights	362.27	34	594	23	-11	54
27	East Garfield Park	1985.83	76	404	65	-11	55
7	Lincoln Park	203.79	15	888	3	-12	56
73	Washington Heights	804.45	53	527	39	-14	57
23	Humboldt Park	1047.58	61	486	47	-14	58
71	Auburn Gresham	1132.07	65	470	51	-14	59
69	Greater Grand Crossing	1652.39	72	446	57	-15	60
26	West Garfield Park	1821.92	73	440	58	-15	61
25	Austin	989.84	59	511	43	-16	62
6	Lake View	228.69	21	834	4	-17	63
39	Kenwood	363.77	36	606	19	-17	64
66	Chicago Lawn	965.42	58	524	41	-17	65
1	Rogers Park	400.45	42	594	24	-18	66
48	Calumet Heights	696.41	50	568	32	-18	67
44	Chatham	1168.00	67	486	48	-19	68
45	Avalon Park	1145.95	66	487	46	-20	69
70	Ashburn	376.22	39	620	17	-22	70
24	West Town	379.92	40	613	18	-22	71
28	Near West Side	780.67	52	583	30	-22	72
43	South Shore	1123.33	64	525	40	-24	73
49	Roseland	1277.06	68	492	44	-24	74
67	West Englewood	1826.86	74	485	49	-25	75
8	Near North Side	404.78	43	904	2	-41	76
32	Loop	888.71	56	1107	1	-55	77

 

Obviously, there are factors that we would expect to make rents skew low.  One would be distance from the Loop.  Thus, the high value areas on the far Northwest and Southeast sides of the city make sense and are expected.  The commute into the Loop in these areas is longer than the commute from many inner western suburbs.    What is remarkable is the huge sea of purple on the Southwest side.   Even the South Loop, a stone’s throw away from downtown Chicago, is a remarkably good deal.  So, what are these neighborhoods, and what do they look like?

CA #	Community Area	Value Rank	% Afr-Amr	% Asian	% Latino	% White	Household Med. Inc.
34	Armour Square	1	14%	66%	4%	15%	$25,582
31	Lower West Side	2	2%	0%	91%	7%	$27,407
60	Bridgeport	4	1%	27%	35%	37%	$37,616
30	South Lawndale	5	14%	0%	83%	3%	$31,443
58	Brighton Park	6	1%	3%	81%	15%	$36,704
36	Oakland	7	98%	0%	1%	1%	$14,021
59	McKinley Park	9	1%	8%	66%	25%	$38,012
38	Grand Boulevard	16	98%	0%	1%	1%	$18,421
33	Near South Side	18	64%	6%	5%	25%	$48,331
35	Douglas	23	87%	6%	1%	7%	$28,101

Quite a diverse lot. 

Median Rent Map

Here is a map of the median rent (2005) estimations for each of the 77 Chicago Community areas.  The colors are a bit different than usual.  They are arranged with the lower ranked areas having higher rents.   This is a bit odd, but it does make it easier to compare to the crime maps.  There are clear similarities between the crime and rent maps, which probably should not come as any surprise.

MEDIAN RENT MAP:

And here is the underlying data in order (highest to lowest rent), now with nifty hyperlinks:

CA #	Community Area	Rank	Median Rent
32	Loop	1	$1,107
8	Near North Side	2	$904
7	Lincoln Park	3	$888
6	Lake View	4	$834
76	Ohare	5	$746
5	North Center	6	$719
10	Norwood Park	7	$714
12	Forest Glen	8	$709
9	Edison Park	9	$678
2	West Ridge	10	$657
41	Hyde Park	11	$656
11	Jefferson Park	12	$648
4	Lincoln Square	13	$640
17	Dunning	14	$636
72	Beverly	15	$632
18	Montclare	16	$623
70	Ashburn	17	$620
24	West Town	18	$613
39	Kenwood	19	$606
77	Edgewater	20	$604
15	Portage Park	21	$601
16	Irving Park	22	$596
57	Archer Heights	23	$594
1	Rogers Park	24	$594
74	Mount Greenwood	25	$589
62	West Elsdon	26	$588
19	Belmont Cragin	27	$585
64	Clearing	28	$584
22	Logan Square	29	$584
28	Near West Side	30	$583
14	Albany Park	31	$581
48	Calumet Heights	32	$568
13	North Park	33	$567
65	West Lawn	34	$561
21	Avondale	35	$561
20	Hermosa	36	$545
3	Uptown	37	$541
75	Morgan Park	38	$541
73	Washington Heights	39	$527
43	South Shore	40	$525
66	Chicago Lawn	41	$524
56	Garfield Ridge	42	$520
25	Austin	43	$511
49	Roseland	44	$492
47	Burnside	45	$490
45	Avalon Park	46	$487
23	Humboldt Park	47	$486
44	Chatham	48	$486
67	West Englewood	49	$485
63	Gage Park	50	$473
71	Auburn Gresham	51	$470
55	Hegewisch	52	$465
53	West Pullman	53	$459
60	Bridgeport	54	$456
59	McKinley Park	55	$452
35	Douglas	56	$452
69	Greater Grand Crossing	57	$446
26	West Garfield Park	58	$440
46	South Chicago	59	$437
52	East Side	60	$434
58	Brighton Park	61	$433
33	Near South Side	62	$422
61	New City	63	$408
40	Washington Park	64	$408
27	East Garfield Park	65	$404
42	Woodlawn	66	$403
29	North Lawndale	67	$402
50	Pullman	68	$397
31	Lower West Side	69	$395
51	South Deering	70	$393
68	Englewood	71	$391
30	South Lawndale	72	$388
38	Grand Boulevard	73	$357
34	Armour Square	74	$351
37	Fuller Park	75	$342
36	Oakland	76	$252
54	Riverdale	77	$211

Updated Violent Crime Map (plus BONUS Property Crime Map)

Thanks first to our small but helpful commentariat.  Just because your suggestions have not been acted upon does not mean they are (entirely) without merit.  We have been busy actually updating data and running regressions.  Expect more substantive posts soon, but, in the meantime, please enjoy an updated version of the previously posted violent crime map as well as a similar one for property crimes.  You will note that I replaced the green color with tan to make it more intuitive (and visually pleasing).  Again, lower ranked areas have less crime.

VIOLENT CRIME:

 

PROPERTY CRIME:

Update (12/14/2008):  Minor corrections made to violent crime map.  7 Community Areas move up or down one category from previous map.

Best Place: The First Regular Feature on Chicago Crime Blog

No blog can be truly taken seriously without regular features (no blog I say).  I am happy to introduce our first regular feature: Best Place.  Essentially, I will pick several criminal activities that one could either partake in or be a victim of and list the single best Community Area to do that based on the reported crime statistics.  The obligatory disclaimer here is that my attempt to make crime data exciting in this feature should not be misconstrued as advocacy for actually partaking in or being a victim of any criminal activity.  However fun it might seem to purposefully get yourself robbed to “win” the category for your neighborhood, it seems like it could be risky.  I imagine that Best Place categories will act as a launching pad for more comprehensive posts, and I also encourage everyone to suggest categories for future Best Place installments in the comments. 

So, here it is, the first Best Place map:

I had no idea when I selected these categories that Washington Park would win three of them.  With the caveats listed above in mind, if anyone wants to take a drive to Washington Park and see if you can buy hallucinogens and a hooker before you get carjacked, feel free to post your experiences in the comments.

Now, another new idea, putting the boring data details at the bottom of the post in italics:

Buy Crack:  Based on per capita reported crimes for manufacture and distribution of crack.

Get a Hooker:  Based on per capita reported crimes in the Prostitution category.

Get Carjacked: Based on per capita reported crimes for vehicular hijacking and aggravated vehicular hijacking, with the later weighted 1.5 times as much as the former.

Have Non-consensual intercourse: Based on per capita reported crimes in the Criminal Sexual Assault category.

Get Killed: Based on per capita reported crimes in the Homicide: 1st or 2nd Degree category.

Buy Hallucinogens:  Based on per capita reported crimes for manufacture and distribution of hallucinogens.

Buy Bogus Drugs:  Based on per capita reported crimes for possession of look-alike drugs.

Get Ripped Off:  Based on per capita reported crimes in the Fraud category.

Violent/Serious Crime Map

This is the first little map I’ve put together.  It ranks the 77 Chicago Community Areas in terms of violent/serious crime.  Lower ranked areas have less violent/serious crime (defined below):

The first thing that struck me about this map is that the northwest side is apparently Switzerland.  There’s the upside to having to ride the blue line for an hour to get to the Loop.  The entire lakefront from Rogers Park to Hyde Park is safer than average, with the least safe appearing to be the Loop itself, though the high transient population of the Loop probably causes even these population-corrected stats to overstate the actual risk of falling victim to a crime there.  Other peaceful hamlets include the Bridgeport/McKinley Park area and, to a lesser extent, the entire I-55 corridor to the city limits.  There are a lot of predominantly Latino areas in here that seem to have far less crime than much higher rent districts (like the Near North Side).  Stay tuned for a value-for-the-money map and look for areas like South Lawndale to be great values.

On the flipside, the South Side’s epicenter of crime is located at about 63rd and the Dan Ryan, and the West Side’s far smaller high crime area is centered at about Central Park and the Eisenhower.

 Here is a map of the Community Areas by name:

 

And now for the data, which is an essentially meaningless index number but is included for comparison purposes.  I tried to write an explanation of exactly how I arrived at them, but it became confusing.  If anyone ever actually reads this blog and is interested, I will post a complete data set explanation later.  Suffice it to say that it is a weighted figure that adds homicides, criminal sexual assaults, robberies, burglaries, arsons, aggravated assaults, and aggravated batteries, with the first two weighted more than the rest and all evaluated on a per capita manner.  Underlying data is reported crime between June 22, 2008 and October 12, 2008.

Edison Park	86
Norwood Park	163
Mount Greenwood	227
Forest Glen	242
OHare	283
Portage Park	324
Jefferson Park	331
Lincoln Square	340
North Park	356
Dunning	377
Edgewater	397
Albany Park	401
Irving Park	408
West Ridge	422
Hegewisch	462
Clearing	482
Hyde Park	511
McKinley Park	513
Bridgeport	533
Lake View	544
Kenwood	552
Brighton Park	555
Uptown	556
Hermosa	559
Garfield Ridge	562
East Side	574
Lincoln Park	574
Avondale	576
Lower West Side	580
South Lawndale	582
Beverly	606
Montclare	609
Archer Heights	619
Rogers Park	628
West Lawn	640
North Center	648
Belmont Cragin	668
Near North Side	673
Armour Square	681
Douglas	693
Logan Square	706
Ashburn	766
West Town	776
Gage Park	795
West Elsdon	806
Oakland	840
Pullman	904
Near South Side	977
Morgan Park	1051
Near West Side	1153
Calumet Heights	1171
Riverdale	1171
New City	1241
Washington Heights	1257
South Deering	1324
Grand Boulevard	1370
Loop	1395
Humboldt Park	1407
Austin	1460
Chicago Lawn	1656
South Chicago	1656
West Pullman	1727
Auburn Gresham	1779
Chatham	1816
South Shore	1866
Avalon Park	1908
Roseland	1957
North Lawndale	1958
Washington Park	2151
West Garfield Park	2209
Greater Grand Crossing	2399
Woodlawn	2405
Burnside	2412
West Englewood	2578
East Garfield Park	2657
Englewood	2677
Fuller Park	2823

The Chicago Crime Blog

Welcome to the Chicago Crime Blog.  Let’s crunch some numbers.