methods : : : choosing case studies

With the information that Rhode Island Housing provided, I mapped all of the housing projects in Providence that were federally subsidized in the past 10 years. This map, shown to the right, illustrates each house that was renovated - the term "project" refers to the group of housing. These are not housing projects in the typical sense of the word; rather, they are a grouping of housing renovated all at once [Click here for more information about this renovation method] .

To choose case studies, I looked at projects that happened with enough time before and after to observe crime data. Furthermore, I picked projects that had a cluster of renovated houses.

Each case study has maps from three areas:

1. The renovated project houses themselves: a count of how many crimes occurred at each of those houses that were renovated. I refer to these houses by their project name (e.g."The Tanner Block." "West End I and II," and "Operation Hope Renewed")
2. The "case study area": this area includes the houses around, behind, and near the renovated project houses. I was interested in whether or not any effect of renovation spread out to the surrounding neighbors. To observe this, I mapped crime on the close neighbors of renovated houses. This area, with varying radii across case studies, was selected by choosing the adjacent streets to the renovation project.
3. The greater neighborhood: serving as a control, the greater neighborhood is both a contextual reference as well as a comparison for baseline drops or rises in crime. For example, it would not be enough to say that crime dropped in the Tanner Block case study area without looking at the greater South Providence neighborhood. Perhaps crime fluctuations were the result of a natural rise or fall; or maybe the whole neighborhood experienced crime drops when a new business district was implemented.

[Click here to view these maps]