Shifting Neighborhoods, Changing Crime: How Urban Context Shapes Outcomes

This study advances research on neighborhood change and crime by examining how key structural characteristics relate to changes in violent crime across diverse urban contexts. Utilizing longitudinal data from 2010 to 2018 in twelve U.S. cities, the analysis applies latent trajectory modeling to test three dynamic patterns: monotonic, asymmetric, and perturbation. Results indicate an asymmetric relationship between disadvantage and violent crime, particularly in large cities. Similarly, residential instability exhibits an asymmetric association with violent crime in stagnant and large cities. Changes in racial/ethnic heterogeneity are generally linked to reductions in violent crime in stagnant and large cities, while in small or growing cities, the relationship is asymmetric. This study provides a more nuanced understanding of how structural conditions shape violence.