Improving public health by shaping the built environment with land-use law

Crime and fear of crime substantially hinders public health both directly (morbidity and mortality) and indirectly (decreasing outdoor activities, community efficacy, etc). Many have argued that crime would be reduced and public health improved if the built environment could be improved by the use of zoning. While there has been some empirical testing of the link between built environment attributes of neighborhoods and crime, there has been insufficient attention to the role that specific land-use policies have on the built environment and crime. We take advantage of detailed block-level crime data in Los Angeles and systematic social observation conducted on 205 blocks in 25 different relatively high-crime neighborhoods in Los Angeles. This methodological strategy controls for neighborhood effects to help isolate the effect of land-use law on crime and help us understand the role of the built environment as a mediator. We supplement this analysis with a trajectory model that measures the relationship between zoning changes and crime throughout Los Angeles. Our central finding is that mixed-use blocks exhibit less crime than blocks that are zoned commercially. This suggests that including some parcels with residential-only zoning on blocks that are otherwise zoned commercially might be a viable means of reducing crime.