A Difference-In-Differences Study of the Effects of a New Abandoned Building Remediation Strategy on Safety

Abstract

Vacant and abandoned buildings pose significant challenges to the health and safety of communities. In 2011 the City of Philadelphia began enforcing a Doors and Windows Ordinance that required property owners of abandoned buildings to install working doors and windows in all structural openings or face significant fines. We tested the effects of the new ordinance on the occurrence of crime surrounding abandoned buildings from January 2011 to April 2013 using a difference-in-differences approach. We used Poisson regression models to compare differences in pre- and post-treatment measures of crime for buildings that were remediated as a result of the ordinance (n = 676) or permitted for renovation (n = 241), and randomly-matched control buildings that were not remediated (n = 676) or permitted for renovation (n = 964), while also controlling for sociodemographic and other confounders measured around each building. Building remediations were significantly associated with citywide reductions in overall crimes, total assaults, gun assaults and nuisance crimes (p

Citation

Kondo, Michelle C.; Keene, Danya; Hohl, Bernadette C.; MacDonald, John M.; Branas, Charles C.; Chen, Yanguang. 2015. A Difference-In-Differences Study of the Effects of a New Abandoned Building Remediation Strategy on Safety. PLoS ONE. 10(7): e0129582-.