The Influence of Built Environment Characteristics on the Occurrence of Crime in Neighborhoods of Amsterdam: A Geographically Weighted Regression Analysis

Crime in neighbourhoods has a significant impact on the quality of life and safety of the residents. There are theories that suggest the relation between the built environment characteristics and the occurrence of crime. These theories suggest that designing the built environment in a particular way could reduce the number of criminal activities, the fear of crime and the victimisation of residents and legitimate users of the area. However, there is little empirical research on this topic. In recent years, the amount of open and spatial data has increased which enables to test these theories empirically. This current study aims to understand the influence better of built environment characteristics on
the amount of crime in the neighbourhoods in Amsterdam by using open and spatial data. In this study, firstly existing theories on the relation between crime and built environment characteristics (i.e. land use, street layout, the existence of parking amenities, the existence of greenspace, the existence of street lighting) were discussed. Later, the influence of selected built environment characteristics on the amount of crime in Amsterdam neighbourhoods was empirically tested. Data regarding crimes was obtained from the Dutch
police department. It provides crime rates per crime type (burglary, vandalism, violent crimes, drugs and nuisance, and theft) and per neighbourhood. The data regarding built environment characteristics were gathered from Open Street Map and Amsterdam open data, and they were processed for further analysis.
In order to look into the relation between the occurrence of crime in neighbourhoods of Amsterdam and the built environment characteristics, firstly an exploratory regression analysis was performed on the different crime types, and then a geographically weighted regression analysis was conducted to identify local variations. The results show that different types of crime were influenced by different characteristics of the built environment. Moreover, variations in the neighbourhoods were observed. One of the findings of this
research is that tourist attractions strongly correlate with the amount of crime. Another interesting finding is that mixed land‐use is negatively correlated with the amount of crime. In general, it can be concluded that the built environment does have an influence on the occurrence of crime and that this influence differs
among crime types. Moreover, different characteristics of the built environment influence different types of crime. The results of this study provide insights for policy recommendations both for necessary data and urban design with respect to crime prevention.