Measuring the associations between eye-level urban design quality and on-street crime density around New York subway entrances. (January 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Su, Nanxi; Li, Wenjing; Qiu, Waishan
• Is Part Of: Habitat international. Volume 131(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-01
• Subjects: Urban design qualities -- Subway entrance -- CPTED -- Street view imagery; Human settlements -- Periodicals; 307
• DOI: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2022.102728
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0197-3975

Abstract

Abstract: The relationship between crimes, fear of crimes, and the physical environments of metro stations are interlocked. They ultimately influence metro safety and ridership, which are essential for not only urban life quality but also the environmental and fiscal sustainability of regional management. This study mainly investigates how the urban design quality (UDQ) of the ground-level environments surrounding subway stations, both how they express (objectively) and how they are perceived (subjectively), is associated with the reported crime density on streets. To extend conventionally interested 'broken window theory', multi-dimensional UDQs highly valued in urban planning literature are measured for metro entrances in New York through the applications of Street View Imagery (SVI), computer vision (CV) and machine learning (ML). Significant associations are found between UDQs and crime densities overbearing the integration of socioeconomic and land use factors. 'Person', 'Safety' and 'Complexity' are associated with higher crime density, while 'Bench', 'Streetlight', 'Skyscraper', 'Human Scale', and 'Imageability' are related to lower crime risk. By bridging urban planning and criminology literature, this study provides new insights into Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). It contributes to the literature with an efficient approach for urbanists and criminologists to replicate for future studies in microenvironments. Highlights: Urban design qualities have robust associations with crime densities. A mismatch exists between the perceived safety and actual crime density. Perceived complexity contains information that is different from mixed land use. Human scale and imageability are desirable in both urban design and crime prevention.