Map of the Week: Property crime by census tract

SHUTTERSTOCK

Map: Property crime by census tract, 2006

This week continues our census-tract-based crime map series with a look at property crime.The data came from Statistics Canada by way of the Toronto police.

The pattern is different from last week's violent crime map, though many of the top neighbourhoods are the same.

Property crime is much more diffuse than the clear pattern in last week's map. There is a concentration in the higher-density parts of the old city, with higher rates in a rough rectangle south of Dupont/O'Connor between Roncesvalles and Victoria Park. As we found with the 2008 breaking and entering map, there is no very simple and obvious connection to income.

Here is a top 20 list:

1	5350003	SW Parkdale	8 on violence map
2	5350073	Greenwood/Gerrard/railway
3	5350316.03	Steeles/Jane/Finch/Gosford
4	5350194.03	Overlea Blvd/Thorncliffe Park
5	5350039	Queen/Dundas/Spadina/Bathurst	6 on violence map
6	5350180	NW of Victoria Park/Danforth
7	5350368	Lawrence/McCowan/Brimley/401
8	5350067	Winchester/Parliament/DVP/Bloor
9	5350356	SW of Lawrence/Markham Rd
10	5350032	Carlton/Dundas/Jarvis/Parliament	1 on violence map
11	5350054	Bloor/Dovercourt/College/Brock
12	5350249.05	Albion/Kipling/Martin Grove/Mt Olive
13	5350071	Hampton/Danforth/Bain/Pape
14	5350205	Lake Shore/23rd St/lake/13th St
15	5350068	Winchester/Parliament/DVP/Gerrard
16	5350033	Queen/Dundas/Jarvis/Parliament	3 on violence map
17	5350292	Sheppard/Highbury/Jane/401	11 on violence map
18	5350052	Bloor/Roncesvalles/Sorauren/Wright
19	5350308.02	Finch/Bathurst/cemetery/Senlac
20	5350080.01	Danforth between Main and Woodbine

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The crimes tracked in this map were:
Breaking and entering
Theft of a motor vehicle (or inside vehicle), theft of bicycles, in possession of stolen property
Theft over $5,000, theft under $5,000 and shoplifting over and under $5,000 frauds
Mischief (against property or causing property damage)

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More background to the study is here. The maps toward the end of the study track particular offences, and are worth a look.

Map of the Week: Violent crime by census tract

IAN WILLMS/TORONTO STAR

Map: Violent crime by census tract, 2006

Regular readers of this blog will have seen several iterations of words to the effect that a map is being produced because improved tools have made it possible.

When Statistics Canada published a file last year of 2006 crime rates for Toronto broken down by 531 census tracts, it wasn't possible to map it on line, and I more or less forgot about it until this week until I found it in an ideas spreadsheet. (Yes, I have an ideas spreadsheet - doesn't everybody?)

The data is from 2006, but very finely textured. I can only imagine the work involved. The authors explain:

Incidents that were located on the boundaries of many census tracts were divided in that number of census tracts. For example, an incident located on the boundary of 3 census tracts was counted as 0,333 incidents in each of the 3 census tracts.

As far as I can tell, the researchers ended up mapping 26,022 violent crimes. Property crimes were dealt with separately, and will be the subject of a different map.

Also, there was an attempt to relate crime rates to both residents and visitors in an area. One problem with our neighbourhood-based crime maps is that they divide the number of reported crimes in a neighbourhood by the number of residents. I suspect that this overstates the crime rate as experienced by residents in neighbourhoods with many outsiders, like those downtown. It's never been clear to me what to do about the problem other than to flag it for the reader.

Here is a top 20 list:

1	5350032	Carlton/Dundas/Jarvis/Parliament
2	5350312.05	SE of Jane/Finch
3	5350033	Queen/Dundas/Jarvis/Parliament
4	5350316.05	NE of Jane/Finch
5	5350207	Off Kipling N of Lake Shore
6	5350039	Queen/Dundas/Spadina/Bathurst
7	5350080.02	Danforth W of Victoria Park to Main
8	5350003	SW Parkdale
9	5350248.02	Martin Grove/Albion Road/Kipling/West Humber
10	5350312.02	SE of Driftwood/Finch
11	5350292	Sheppard/Highbury/Jane/401
12	5350018	DVP/Eastern/Carlaw/Queen
13	5350031	Gerrard/DVP/Dundas/Parliament
14	5350173	NE of Jane/Eglinton
15	5350358.03	Along Kingston Rd SE of Lawrence
16	5350312.04	SW of Jane/Finch
17	5350341.03	NE of Danforth/Victoria Park
18	5350069	Bain/Pape/DVP/Gerrard (includes Don Jail)
19	5350097.01	NW of Bloor/Dufferin
20	5350337	SW of Midland/Kingston Rd

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A string of neighbourhoods with high violent crime rates stretches south from Jane and Steeles more or less along Black Creek and the railway tracks south to Parkdale.

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A large area centred more or less at Lawrence and Bayview has fairly low violent crime rates:

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Another area with high violent crime rates starts in the east downtown and stretches east toward and past Victoria Park, with several areas of lower rates.

In an e-mail back-and-forth this week, Statistics Canada explained that the violent crimes tracked were:

Homicides: murders, manslaughters, infanticide
Attempted murders
Assaults
Sexual assaults, sexual offences (invitation to sex. touching, luring via computer, etc.)
Robberies
Criminal negligence causing bodily harm
Firearm offences: use of, discharge, pointing
Forcible confinements, kidnappings, abductions
Criminal harassment, uttering threats, threatening or harassing phone calls
Other violent violations: trafficking in persons, arson causing disregard for human life, intimidation, hostage-taking, incest, voyeurism, etc.

Map of the Week: Drug charges

CANADIAN PRESS

Map: Average annual drug charges per 1,000 residents, 2004-2008

This week continues our occasional series of neighbourhood crime maps with a look at drug charges.

The most obvious thing about the map is the higher rates of drug charges more or less downtown, roughly in an area bounded by Queen/King, Bathurst, Bloor and Parliament, more or less. The missing piece of information is how many of these charges were laid against residents of any given neighbourhood, and how many against people from outside.

Looking more broadly at the city, we see the familiar check-mark shape extending diagonally down though the west end, through the downtown and up again through Scarborough. This appears on many other maps, including this one and this one.

The rate is averaged over five years because of significant year-to year fluctuation in many areas.

The map shows five years of data for all 140 neighbourhoods, as seen below:

Map(s): Vehicle theft and homicide rates

Map: Five-year homicide rates by neighbourhood

Map: Vehicle theft rates, 2008

This week, we continue our crime series using neighbourhood-based crime statistics produced by the Toronto police. These use the City of Toronto neighbourhood boundaries, not the set produced by our neighbourhood project earlier in the year.

Vehicle theft is strongly concentrated in the northwest of the city, a pattern we saw more crudely in a division-based map last year. A four-neighbourhood clump centres more or less on the De Havilland plant. West Humber-Clairville, in the city’s northwest corner, has the highest rate, one of only two neighbourhoods with a rate above 10 2008 vehicle thefts per 1,000. (Yorkdale-Glen Park is the other. )

Here are the top 10:

1 West Humber-Clairville
2 Yorkdale-Glen Park
3 Humber Summit
4 York University Heights
5 Newtonbrook West
6 Clanton Park
7 L'Amoreaux
8 Downsview-Roding-CFB
9 Clairlea-Birchmount
10 Islington-City Centre West

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I took all five years worth of data to get something recognizable as a neighbourhood-scale homicide rate.

High homicide rates (by Toronto standards) concentrate in four areas: Downsview/Rexdale/Jane-Finch; Parkdale and Niagara; the east downtown; and northwestern Scarborough.

Here are the top 10:

1 Elms-Old Rexdale
2 Black Creek
3 Moss Park
4 Danforth Village - Toronto
5 Morningside
6 Rustic
7 Glenfield-Jane Heights
8 Regent Park
9 Church-Yonge Corridor
10 Cabbagetown-South St. James Town

Individual homicides (omitting 2004 and including 2009 to date) can be seen here.

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The maps show five years of data for all 140 neighbourhoods, as seen below:

Map of the Week: Breaking and entering

SHUTTERSTOCK

Map: Breaking and entering rates

Map: Change in breaking and entering, 2004-8

This week, we begin an occasional series on crime, using neighbourhood-based crime statistics produced by the Toronto police. These use the City of Toronto neighbourhood boundaries, not the set produced by our neighbourhood project earlier in the year.

Before I saw the map, I expected more burglary in high-income neighbourhoods, based on the idea that wealthy people would be more likely to have things worth stealing. That turns out not to be consistently true, though the Bridle Path and Casa Loma do have high rates. The stronger relationship seems to be with areas around universities, with U of T, York and (almost) Ryerson in areas with very high burglary rates.

Here are the top 20:

1 University
2 Bay Street Corridor
3 Kensington-Chinatown
4 Moss Park
5 Bridle Path-Sunnybrook-York Mills
6 East End-Danforth
7 Casa Loma
8 York University Heights
9 Annex
10 Church-Yonge Corridor
11 Waterfront Communities-The Island
12 Rosedale-Moore Park
13 Woodbine Corridor
14 Clairlea-Birchmount
15 West Humber-Clairville
16 South Riverdale
17 Little Portugal
18 Roncesvalles
19 The Beaches
20 Forest Hill South

It’s an odd mixture of areas, and I’d be curious to know what readers make of it.

One striking pattern is the fall in breaking and entering between 2004 and 2008 in most areas.

This trend has been noticed elsewhere in Canada, in the United States and in England. Burglary rates in the United States are somewhat more than half what they were in 1988.

Two business/economics blogs (link, link) have floated the idea that the decline in burglaries is linked to falling prices of manufactured goods – in other words, that burglars are a casualty of free trade.

The maps show five years of burglary data for all 140 neighbourhoods, as seen below: