Is urban greenspace linked to lower crime risk in cities?

Greenspace enhances quality of life for urban residents in many ways, but it may also produce unexpected and undesired consequences. For example, a growing literature is exploring the relationship between greenspace and crime in cities, yielding mixed results. To address this question on a larger scale across diverse contexts, we used a multilevel modeling approach to investigate the relationship between different types of crime and urban greenspace in 59,703 census block groups within the 301 largest cities in the United States. Greater amounts of greenspace are associated with lower property crime risk and with lower violent crime risk in all but 3 cities.

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