“Bad” Neighborhoods, Fast Food, “Sleazy” Businesses, and Drug Dealers: Relations between the Location of Licit and Illicit Businesses in the Urban Environment

Abstract

This study explores the demographic and ecological characteristics of urban neighborhoods according to variations in their levels of visible drug sales. In addition to standard socio-demographic measures, extensive data on a number of licit businesses located in different neighborhoods are also included. These range from those that residents are likely to consider desirable (e.g., bookstores) to those they are likely to consider undesirable (e.g., massage parlors). It is suggested that an elaboration of the concept of collective efficacy may be useful in understanding the relation between business location and public drug dealing. Specifically, we propose that collective efficacy can be understood not only in terms of neighborhood residents' capacity to resist the incursion of factors perceived as threatening, but also their capacity to attract those perceived as potentially enhancing the quality of life. The results indicate that the neighborhoods most burdened by visible drug markets are distinctive not so much by virtue of the undesirable licit businesses that they contain, but by the dearth of desirable ones. This suggests not only that neighborhoods with higher levels of visible drug sales lack the type of collective efficacy that would enable residents to keep out criminal activity, but they also appear to lack the ability to draw in desirable businesses.