Picturing Renewal:
Using GIS to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Housing Renovation

Christine Coletta
Bachelor's of Arts in Environmental Studies
May 2002

Abandoned buildings are a blight to urban communities. In Providence, vacant houses are scattered through neighborhoods; they are marked by code violations, litter, graffiti, and the potential for crime. But renovation of abandoned houses to turn them into affordable, fully-restored houses is taking place in lower income neighborhoods. My study, a senior thesis in the Environmental Studies Department at Brown University, looks at whether renovating these houses is associated with a change in crime on those properties and their immediate neighbors.

Using GIS, I mapped crime on the parcel level at three case study areas: the Tanner Block, West End I and II, and Operation Hope Renewed. I looked at crime before and after renovation on the individual houses that were renovated, their neighbors, and the greater neighborhood as a control. I found that these renovation projects do not correlate with increase or decrease in crime. One of the case studies, West End I and II, experienced a significant decline of crime after renovation, while the other two case study areas had an increase of crimes overall. More importantly, each house differs in its number of crime reports after renovation. I found that the effects of renovation must be measured by each individual house, further supporting the need to study crime by individual house.

This study provides a narrative for those interested in data collection and GIS mapping at the parcel level. I hope to encourage city leaders to make parcel-level mapping of municipal data a priority. The disparity in crime reports from house to house proves the importance of measuring crime at the parcel level.

The full thesis is available on the web at:
http://envstudies.brown.edu/thesis/2002/coletta/
The links above and in the top bar will provide a starting place to read through this thesis. The nature of the web thesis is nonlinear; it takes the reader from link to link according to the reader's interests and level of knowledge. For readers who want a full understanding of my work, I suggest that you start at the background and thesis question.