The Effect of the Prevalence of Community Murals on Neighborhood Crime Rates in Philadelphia

Open Access
- Author:
- Xu, Gloria
- Area of Honors:
- Economics
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Daniel Goldstein, Thesis Supervisor
James R. Tybout, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- art
crime
theft
homicide
murals
Philadelphia - Abstract:
- In this research paper, I will be studying the relationship between the number of community murals within a neighborhood, and the neighborhood’s crime rates in Philadelphia. Crime, particularly violent crime, is prevalent in Philadelphia; Philadelphia regularly places on the real estate analytics company NeighborhoodScouts “Top 100 Most Dangerous Cities in America” list—and Philadelphia’s crime rate consistently ranks higher than the national average. Philadelphia also houses one of the nation’s most prolific art programs, the Mural Arts Program, which has created over 2,600 public art pieces for the city. These factors have incentivized me to study whether there is a significant relationship between the two. The results of this type of research could significantly influence future city planning decisions. In particular, I will be analyzing 7 neighborhoods within Philadelphia that contain a total of 56 official community murals. I have collected data on each neighborhood’s yearly population, total number of homicide cases, total number of thefts, and total amount of money received from storefront-improvement-grants for this analysis. This study spans from the year 2008 to 2015. After running the regressions, I found two statistically significant relationships. Using a 95% confidence level, I found that the total number of community murals and levels of violent crime, represented by cases of homicide, were significantly related. Interestingly, I also found that the total amount of money from storefront-improvement-grants was significantly related to levels of non-violent crime, which were defined as the number of thefts. However, there were significant limitations to my research that I will expand upon in the Discussions section.