Questions of how to regulate the sale of alcohol, how to enforce public intoxication, and whether or not alcohol leads to crime can quickly divide communities into factions. So what evidence exists to help cities answer these questions?
Tristan Hallman set out to discover whether Dallas could hold its liquor—by mapping liquor licenses and crime to search for correlations.
According to Hallman, the map shows "clusters of liquor stores in some of the top Dallas police crime hot spots"—such as in the far north "Dallas Hot sport" of Preston Road and Spring Valley Road. He also notes correlations in Red Bird and in Five Points.
Bu there's a catch:
"But the classic and not-so-scientific eyeball test also shows the biggest cluster is concentrated downtown and in entertainment-like districts like Uptown and Deep Ellum and Oak Lawn. They are not the top areas for crime in Dallas. And another intersection known for some violent crime, St. Augustine and Bruton in Pleasant Grove have very few places licensed to sell booze."
Hallman goes on to examine research into the effects of alcohol sales to crime, which lacks academic research that can make the correlation to causation leap.
FULL STORY: Map: Where is all the booze in Dallas? And does it correlate with crime rates?
Oregon Passes Exemption to Urban Growth Boundary
Cities have a one-time chance to acquire new land for development in a bid to increase housing supply and affordability.
Where Urban Design Is Headed in 2024
A forecast of likely trends in urban design and architecture.
Savannah: A City of Planning Contrasts
From a human-scales, plaza-anchored grid to suburban sprawl, the oldest planned city in the United States has seen wildly different development patterns.
Washington Tribes Receive Resilience Funding
The 28 grants support projects including relocation efforts as coastal communities face the growing impacts of climate change.
Adaptive Reuse Bills Introduced in California Assembly
The legislation would expand eligibility for economic incentives and let cities loosen regulations to allow for more building conversions.
LA's Top Parks, Ranked
TimeOut just released its list of the top 26 parks in the L.A. area, which is home to some of the best green spaces around.
City of Rochester
Boston Harbor Now
City of Bellevue
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Birmingham, Alabama
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.