Are America’s downtowns unsafe? The info says no.

Three years after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic emptied them, America’s downtowns are nonetheless hurting. White-collar staff are solely again of their workplaces about half the time — and much much less on Monday or Friday. Many companies that service these staff have closed up store. Between 2019 and 2022, workplace rents in Manhattan fell about 14 p.c, based on latest reporting from Axios. In San Francisco, workplace rents are down by greater than twice that.

There’s an apparent rationalization for this disaster: Many white-collar staff merely not must commute to their workplaces, assuming their firm even nonetheless leases one. However there’s one other main issue that doesn’t get almost as a lot recognition: crime.

“The No. 1 barrier that we heard from individuals was that worry of crime was what was stopping them from going downtown, notably inside the central enterprise district itself and on their commutes there,” stated Hanna Love, senior analysis affiliate on the assume tank Brookings Establishment.

Love is working with a staff at Brookings that’s finding out the well being and way forward for American downtowns. She shared their findings with Right now, Defined, Vox’s every day information radio present and podcast, for its new collection on the way forward for cities post-pandemic: “Metropolis Limits.” (I’m a producer and reporter for Right now, Defined and the lead producer on this collection.)

Anybody taking note of big-city politics proper now might be conscious of the salience of crime as a problem. Paul Vallas, considered one of two candidates in Chicago’s early April mayoral runoff, is working an unabashed law-and-order marketing campaign in a metropolis the place automotive thefts doubled between 2021 and final yr. In Philadelphia, 89 p.c of respondents to a latest survey forward of that metropolis’s mayoral election in November stated “crime” ought to be the highest precedence for elected officers. And in Washington, DC, President Joe Biden not too long ago deserted his dedication to DC residence rule by refusing to veto a Republican measure to block the town’s proposed up to date legal code over considerations that it was tender on crime.

“Issues can occur anyplace, anytime,” Allison McDonald, a Chicagoan who lives simply outdoors of downtown, instructed a Right now, Defined freelance producer. “[It] used to really feel extra pocketed … you sort of knew the place to remain away. Now it simply occurs anyplace, any time of the day. The carjackings. The road crime. It’s simply approach worse.”

Besides right here’s the factor: Whereas crime has risen because the pandemic in most US cities, it’s not spiking in downtowns.

Tl;dr: Crime is up, however not up a lot downtown

That’s what Love and her colleagues discovered once they crunched the info. She and her staff have spent the previous couple of months gathering statistics and conducting about 100 interviews with workplace staff, small enterprise house owners, and other people in New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Chicago — 4 cities the place the downtown enterprise districts have been sluggish to recuperate. They then broke out knowledge for violent crime and property crime for every of these cities’ downtowns.

Homicides spiked nationwide within the early a part of the pandemic, earlier than leveling off after which declining barely between 2021 and 2022. Violent crime extra broadly — a class that features rape and aggravated assault — trended up in every metropolis between 2019 and 2022, to various levels. Chicago noticed a 5 p.c improve in violent crime throughout that point, Philadelphia noticed a 1 p.c improve, New York noticed a 26 p.c improve, and Seattle noticed a 22 p.c improve.

Property crime — a class that features offenses like larceny and automotive break-ins — noticed a sharper uptick in all 4 cities. Philadelphia noticed city-wide property crime improve by 17 p.c, New York 38 p.c, Seattle 17 p.c, and Chicago 36 p.c.

However right here’s the twist: in all 4 of these cities, the share of all property crimes occurring downtown remained comparatively secure or declined.

Violent crime downtown additionally stayed comparatively secure, declining by 2 p.c in Seattle, ticking up by 1 p.c in Chicago and Philadelphia, and by 2 p.c in New York Metropolis.

Courtesy of Brookings Establishment

So downtowns had been a few of the most secure locations to be in these cities pre-pandemic. And, by the top of final yr, they nonetheless had been. That reality, although, makes small upticks in crime numbers extra perceptible, Love stated.

“Folks aren’t essentially fascinated with citywide statistics once they’re fascinated with how they need to really feel secure,” Love instructed Right now, Defined co-host Sean Rameswaram. “Individuals are listening to about individuals getting shot. Individuals are speaking to their buddies … there’s this mismatch in perceptions and actuality, however it nonetheless issues as a result of persons are nonetheless afraid.”

Violent crime has lengthy been concentrated in low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods which have additionally been marked by segregation, discrimination, and disinvestment. However crimes in these areas, Love stated, are inclined to get much less media consideration than people who happen downtown.

Conflating crime and “dysfunction”

What else might be behind the mismatch between crime knowledge and crime vibes? One idea that got here up repeatedly is that metropolis residents and guests are, to some extent, conflating precise violent crime with broader indications of city dysfunction.

“There are a number of seen indicators of dysfunction that aren’t essentially associated to crime which are inflicting individuals to really feel that cities have turn into unsafe,” Henry Grabar, an city affairs reporter at Slate, instructed Rameswaram. “I’m considering of issues like homelessness, drug use, empty streets, and lack of individuals … that’s inflicting them to assume that cities have turn into extra harmful locations than maybe they’re.”

Homelessness is an efficient instance. In New York, Chicago, and Philly, based on knowledge analyzed by the Brookings staff, the homeless inhabitants truly fell by greater than 20 p.c between 2019 and 2022. Seattle was the outlier: King County, which incorporates Seattle, noticed its homeless inhabitants develop by 19 p.c.

However even though the homeless inhabitants fell by fairly a bit in most of these cities through the pandemic, the overwhelming majority of interviewees Brookings spoke to believed the variety of homeless individuals of their metropolis had spiked and that the unhoused had been contributing to the crime drawback.

“Throughout the board, the visibility of unsheltered homelessness has elevated in downtowns as a result of there’s much less avenue exercise. So persons are seeing or noticing extra unsheltered individuals and they’re feeling unsafe due to that,” Love stated. “That doesn’t essentially line up with what the statistics inform us, which is that people who find themselves experiencing homelessness usually tend to be victims of crime than to perpetrate them.”

Tackling the notion of crime downtown

So what can a mayor or different elected official do to make individuals really feel as secure as they really are downtown?

Tackling this notion was the express purpose of “Damaged Home windows”-style policing. The technique, specified by a 1982 Atlantic essay and adopted most prominently by New York Metropolis within the Nineteen Nineties, argued that police ought to aggressively implement low-level offenses like public urination and graffiti, each as a result of that kind of crime makes individuals afraid and since it creates a way of impunity the place extra severe crime can flourish.

Damaged Home windows might have made some individuals really feel safer, however, by way of its cornerstone coverage of stop-and-frisk, it additionally led to numerous Black and Latino metropolis residents being focused by police in dehumanizing and legally doubtful stops. In Philadelphia in 2009, police made greater than 260,000 stops, greater than another police division within the nation, based on an American Civil Liberties Union report. Near half of these stops had been made with out displaying any cheap suspicion.

And the precise influence of the Damaged Home windows coverage on crime continues to be debated. Severe crimes fell in New York Metropolis all through the 2000s — and stored falling after NYC’s stop-and-frisk coverage was declared unconstitutional in 2013.

Grabar argues that one of the best ways to handle the notion drawback is to get extra our bodies again into downtown frequently. It’s a notion first articulated as “Eyes on the Road” by the well-known urbanist Jane Jacobs: the thought being that wholesome communities naturally implement shared social norms. However that requires numbers.

And therein lies the issue. Folks don’t need to go downtown as a result of they’re anxious. However one of the best ways to make individuals really feel secure once more downtown … is to have extra individuals there. One of the simplest ways to sq. that circle, Grabar suggests, is that downtowns ought to attempt to entice residents as an alternative. Which means changing workplaces to residences and constructing new housing.

Metropolis leaders in New York and Chicago are on board: They’re pushing plans to encourage office-to-residential conversion. And in Seattle, the planning division is providing a $10,000 prize to groups of property house owners and designers that submit plans to transform downtown workplace buildings to residences.

“I don’t assume I’m telling metropolis leaders something they don’t know. It’s simply that I don’t assume they fairly grasp the urgency of it, as a result of if you happen to don’t get individuals downtown, if you happen to don’t make these streets really feel full and full of life and vibrant once more, then individuals will go away and they’re going to cease coming,” Grabar stated. “And then you definately get this kind of doom loop of empty streets and a sense of insecurity and disinvestment in public companies and so forth. So including housing downtown is an enormous approach of bringing individuals again and making the streets really feel secure.”

The renaissance in American cities that started within the Nineteen Nineties and lasted up till the pandemic arrived trusted bringing crime down and making individuals really feel safer. The problem for metropolis leaders on this remote-work period is to as soon as once more discover success on each of those fronts, however with out resorting to the punitive techniques of their forebears.