Neighborhood disorder, dilapidated housing, and crime: Multilevel analysis within a midsized Midwestern city context

This dissertation had two main purposes. First, it attempted to test the broken windows theory within a midsized Midwestern city context, using two waves of field observation data and other various official datasets. Second, cross-level interaction dynamics were examined via a Hierarchical Mixed Poisson Model including a spatial lag term. In order to make the multivariate contextual analyses more credible, this study further attempted to clarify sensitive methodological issues that are likely to influence study outcomes.;The Hierarchical Mixed Poisson Model revealed several notable findings. First, the results for violent crime were different from those for property crime, which appeared to be supportive of Clarke's (1970) notion that more crime-specific approaches need to be taken in research and crime prevention policy. Second, the effect of physical disorder change on violent crime change was negatively moderated by the level of concentrated disadvantage. In other words, the link between physical disorder and violent crime was less valid in prosperous neighborhoods than in disadvantaged counterparts, which implied that strategies focusing solely on reducing physical disorder might have little effect on dropping the level of violent crime in poor neighborhoods. Third, social disorder change and residential instability had a negative interaction effect on property crime change. It indicated that the impact of social disorder change on property crime change became weaker as the level of residential instability increased, which further implied that dealing with social disorder might be less effective in reducing property crime in non-stable communities than in stable communities.;Along with the necessity of crime-specific approach, the above cross-level interaction effects made a suggestion that the link between disorder and crime could be different depending on various community contexts, and thus more context-specific approaches need to be taken. However, it was necessary for the findings to be interpreted with a caveat due to some limitations. As an example, the important mediating factor, collective efficacy was not controlled for.