Gangs of London and public housing

Richard Disney, Tom Kirchmaier (), Stephen Machin and Carmen Villa

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: Novel spatial data on London street gangs between 1990 and 2015 are combined with local housing characteristics to produce a newly constructed data source that shows how social housing and its architectural design relates to gang presence and neighbourhood crime. High-rise public housing estates built in the post-World War II era are much more likely to host gangs than areas without social housing. To address concerns that social housing was built in already high-crime areas, localised high-rise construction is shown to be predicted from spatial patterns of WWII bomb damage that occurred in the 1940-41 Blitz. Bomb-induced high-rise construction significantly raises gang presence and criminality, with there being especially high juvenile crime rates in gang areas.

Keywords: London gangs; public housing; bombs; knife crime (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-01-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hre, nep-law, nep-mac and nep-uep
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2147

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