Measuring the effects of built environment on bus stop crime

There has been considerable interest in recent decades in the identification of the physical correlates of crime in different urban settings. In this study we focus on bus stop crime and seek to understand how different environmental attributes in the vicinity of a bus stop can affect the incidence of crime. We first review evidence from the relevant literature to understand the impacts of built environment on crime. This is followed by the presentation of our empirical research. We have used a stratified random sample of sixty bus stops in downtown Los Angeles to examine the effects of environmental and land-use attributes on crime rates. Using descriptive statistics, correlations, regression and discriminant analyses, and matched-pair analysis, we find some relations between the existence or absence of certain environmental attributes and the incidence of crime.