Does Street Social Activity Impact Crime? An Analysis in New York City

Abstract

The current study examines the relationship between the level of social activity and crime in place. We theoretically conceptualized the social activity as a combination of two essential elements of vitality and diversity. Our results suggest that level of social activity has a crime enhancing effect on both violent and property crime. We also found that there are positive interaction effects between the measures of vitality and diversity. This study contributes to the field by introducing a theoretically driven concept of social activity and empirically showing how the two dimensions of social activity—vitality and diversity—have independent effects that multiplicatively impact the level of crime at a location.