Geography of Education, Unemployment, Poverty and Crime in Chicago

By

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation is an opportunity for me to extend my regards to my research supervisor, my beloved friends, and my family for their untiring support that they furnished throughout my research. I am grateful to them for their belief in me and the guidance that they provided me without which I would have never been able to work on and complete this research. It also signifies my own views and does not closely relate to the university.

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DECLARATION

I, (), would like to declare that all contents included in this study stand for my individual work without any aid, and this proposal has not been submitted for any examination at academic as well as professional level, previously. It is also represents my very own views and not essentially those that are associated with other university.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS2

DECLARATION3

ABSTRACT5

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION6

Objectives and Statement of the Problem7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW8

Chicago Community Area Map8

Population9

White Population9

Non-White Population11

Education11

High School Graduate Or Higher13

Bachelor's Degree or Higher13

Unemployment16

Urban economic change in U.S. metropolitan areas17

Urban economic change and central-city social disorganizations19

Urban economic change and central-city crime rates20

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND DATA23

Research design23

Measures23

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION26

Results26

CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS35

REFERENCES37

ABSTRACT

Little attention has been paid to the simultaneous impacts of urban economic change, in particular the effects of industrial restructuring from manufacturing to service industries in central cities and the suburbanization of employment, on both central-city social disorganizations and crime rates in central cities. This study first assumes that urban economic decline aggravates central-city social disorganizations (family disruption, and population mobility). Second, this study proposes that urban economic decline increases central-city crime rates (seven index crime rates). This study used four predictors of economic transformations in an intrametropolitan area between 1980 and 1990 to measure urban economic change. Three of these measures were indicators of central-city economic change (changes in central-city employment ratio of service to manufacturing sectors, unemployment rate, and poverty rate), and one was an indicator of suburban economic change (suburban employment rate). Results from a sample of 153 central cities confirmed that a rise in the central-city employment ratio accelerated suburban population mobility. After including two measures of social disorganizations, urban economic change had a significant effect on central-city crime rates, in which a decline in manufacturing employment, relative to service employment, increased three central-city crime rates: aggravated assault, larceny, and burglary rates. Two central-city crime rates, rape and larceny, increased with a rise in central-city poverty rate, as well. In contrast, suburban employment growth was related to a decrease in central-city violent crime rates.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Past research on ecological determinants of crime, called the social disorganization approach, has primarily stressed the importance of poverty (Bailey, 1984, Lee, 2000, Parker, 1989 and Sampson, 1985), unemployment (Grant & Martinez, 1997; Miethe, Hughes, & McDowall, 1991), income inequality (Blau & Blau, 1982; Farley, 1987; Shihadeh & Ousey, 1996), family disruption (Sampson & Groves, 1989; Shihadeh & Steffensmeier, 1994), and population mobility as the key determinants of urban crime rates (Crutchfield, Geerken, & Gove, 1982; Sampson & Groves, 1989; Shaw & McKay, ...