̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - London

Airbnb rentals linked to increased crime rates in London neighbourhoods

fpjl2 — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 08:24:17 +0000

Latest research has revealed a ‘positive association’ between the number of properties listed as Airbnb rentals and police-reported robberies and violent crimes in thousands of London neighbourhoods between 2015 and 2018.

In fact, the study led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge suggests that a 10% increase in active Airbnb rentals in the city would correspond to an additional 1,000 robberies per year across London.*

Urban sociologists say the rapid pace at which crime rises in conjunction with new rentals suggests that the link is related more to opportunities for crime, rather than loss of cohesion within communities – although both are likely contributing factors.

“We tested for the most plausible alternative explanations, from changes in police patrols to tourist hotspots and even football matches,” said Dr Charles Lanfear from Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology, co-author of the study published today in the journal Criminology.

“Nothing changed the core finding that Airbnb rentals are related to higher crime rates in London neighbourhoods.”

“While Airbnb offers benefits to tourists and hosts in terms of ease and financial reward, there may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation,” Lanfear said.

Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a giant of the digital economy, with more than 5 million property hosts now active on the platform in some 100,000 cities worldwide.

However, concerns that Airbnb is contributing to unaffordable housing costs has led to a backlash among residents of cities such as Barcelona, and calls for greater regulation.

London is one of the most popular Airbnb markets in the world. An estimated 4.5 million guests stayed in a London Airbnb during the period covered by the study.

Lanfear and his ̽��ֱ�� of Pennsylvania co-author Professor David Kirk used masses of data from AirDNA: a site that scrapes Airbnb to provide figures, trends and approximate geolocations for the short-term letting market.

They mapped AirDNA data from 13 calendar quarters (January 2015 to March 2018) onto ‘Lower Layer Super Output Areas’, or LSOAs.

These are designated areas of a few streets containing around two thousand residents, used primarily for UK census purposes. There are 4,835 LSOAs in London, and all were included in the study.

Crime statistics from the UK Home Office and Greater London Authority for 6 categories – robbery, burglary, theft, anti-social behaviour, any violence, and bodily harm – were then mapped onto LSOAs populated with AirDNA data.

̽��ֱ��researchers analysed all forms of Airbnb lets, but found the link between active Airbnbs and crime is primarily down to entire properties for rent, rather than spare or shared rooms.

̽��ֱ��association between active Airbnb rentals and crime was most significant for robbery and burglary, followed by theft and any violence. No link was found for anti-social behaviour and bodily harm.

On average across London, an additional Airbnb property was associated with a 2% increase in the robbery rate within an LSOA. This association was 1% for thefts, 0.9% for burglaries, and 0.5% for violence.

“While the potential criminogenic effect for each Airbnb rental is small, the accumulative effect of dozens in a neighbourhood, or tens of thousands across the city, is potentially huge,” Lanfear said.

He points out that London had an average of 53,000 active lettings in each calendar-quarter of the study period, and an average of 11 lettings per LSOA.

At its most extreme, one neighbourhood in Soho, an area famed for nightlife, had a high of 318 dedicated Airbnbs – some 30% of all households in the LSOA.

̽��ֱ��data models suggest that a 3.2% increase in all types of Airbnb rentals per LSOA would correspond to a 1% increase in robberies city-wide: 325 additional robberies based on the figure of 32,500 recorded robberies in London in 2018.

Lanfear and Kirk extensively stress-tested the association between Airbnb listings and London crime rates.

This included factoring in ‘criminogenic variables’ such as property prices, police stops, the regularity of police patrols, and even English Premier League football games (by both incorporating attendance into data modelling, and removing all LSOAs within a kilometre of major games).

̽��ֱ��duo re-ran their data models excluding all the 259 LSOAs in central London’s Zone One, to see if the association was limited to high tourism areas with lots of Airbnb listings. ̽��ֱ��data models even incorporated the seasonal ‘ebb and flow’ of London tourism. Nothing changed the overall trends.

Prior to crunching the numbers, the researchers speculated that any link might be down to Airbnbs affecting ‘collective efficacy’: the social cohesion within a community, combined with a willingness to intervene for the public good.

̽��ֱ��study measured levels of collective efficacy across the city using data from both the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor of London’s Office, who conduct surveys on public perceptions of criminal activity and the likely responses of their community.

Collective efficacy across London is not only consistently high, but did not explain the association between Airbnbs and crime in the data models.

Moreover, when Airbnb listings rise, the effect on crime is more immediate than one caused by a slow erosion of collective efficacy. “Crime seems to go up as soon as Airbnbs appear, and stays elevated for as long as they are active,” said Lanfear.

̽��ֱ��researchers conclude it is likely driven by criminal opportunity. “A single Airbnb rental can create different types of criminal opportunity,” said Lanfear.

“An Airbnb rental can provide an easy potential victim such as a tourist unfamiliar with the area, or a property that is regularly vacant and so easier to burgle. A very temporary occupant may be more likely to cause criminal damage.”

“Offenders may learn to return to areas with more Airbnbs to find unguarded targets,” said Lanfear. “More dedicated Airbnb properties may mean fewer long-term residents with a personal stake in the area who are willing to report potential criminal activity.”

Airbnb has taken steps to prevent crime, including some background checks as well as requirements for extended bookings on occasions popular for one-night parties, such as New Year’s Eve. “ ̽��ֱ��fact that we still find an increase in crime despite Airbnb’s efforts to curtail it reveals the severity of the predicament,” said Kirk.

Added Lanfear: “Short-term letting sites such as Airbnb create incentives for landlords that lead to property speculation, and we can see the effect on urban housing markets. We can now see that the expansion of Airbnb may contribute to city crime rates.”

“It is not the company or even the property owners who experience the criminogenic side effects of Airbnb, it is the local residents building their lives in the neighbourhood.”

Notes:

*Above 2018 levels, which is when the study data ends.

Rising numbers of houses and flats listed as short-term lets on Airbnb are associated with higher rates of crimes such as burglaries and street robberies right across London, according to the most detailed study of its kind.

There may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation

Charles Lanfear

Karl Hendon/Getty

London townhouses in Greenwich

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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London Underground polluted with metallic particles small enough to enter human bloodstrem

sc604 — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 15:55:12 +0000

̽��ֱ��London Underground is polluted with ultrafine metallic particles small enough to end up in the human bloodstream, according to ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers. These particles are so small that they are likely being underestimated in surveys of pollution in the world’s oldest metro system.

Syphilitic City: one in five Georgian Londoners had syphilis by their mid-30s, study suggests

ta385 — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 08:45:00 +0000

250 years ago, over one-fifth of Londoners had been treated for syphilis by their 35th birthday, historians have calculated.

Police platform patrols create ‘phantom effect’ that cuts crime in Tube stations

fpjl2 — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 15:02:29 +0000

A massive experiment that deployed regular police patrols on platforms has shown that four 15-minute patrols a day in some of the capital’s most crime-ridden Underground platforms reduced reported crime by 28% in patrolled locations, while it rose 16% on platforms without patrols.

Researchers from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Institute of Criminology worked with the British Transport Police (BTP) to conduct the experiment across six months in 2011-2012. ̽��ֱ��findings have been published in the journal Criminology.

̽��ֱ��team identified the 115 London platforms where reported crime was highest. They randomly allocated 57 of these platforms to four daily 'doses' of patrols – two officers on foot for quarter of an hour – four days a week, and compared the effects to the remaining 'untreated' platforms.

Patrolled platforms dropped from 88 crimes in the preceding six months to 63 crimes on the same platforms during the six months of the experiment. In the same time periods, crimes on platforms without regular patrols increased from 64 to 74.

A total of 3,549 calls to police from the platform came from stations without patrols, compared to 2,817 in the stations receiving a policing 'dosage' – a relative difference of 21%.

Researchers also found that patrols on platforms did not simply 'displace' the crimes. Instead, the overall pattern showed crime going down in all parts of the stations – not just on platforms – relative to 'control' stations.

Strikingly, they discovered that the vast majority of reduction in both crime and calls for assistance occurred when these police patrols were absent – some 97% of the measured effect. ̽��ֱ��criminologists have dubbed this the “London Underground paradox”.

“ ̽��ֱ��total crime prevention benefit of police patrols may be greater when they are absent than when they are present,” said study co-author Prof Lawrence Sherman. “In the London Underground experiment we see a huge residual effect of brief appearances by patrolling officers after they leave”

“This phantom effect suggests that crime declines when potential offenders are apprehensive about a possible police presence based on recent patrolling patterns – even when there are no police in the vicinity,” he said.

“In London stations, it may be that more professional kinds of offenders are particularly sensitive to changes in police presence, such as pickpockets and distraction thieves.”

“ ̽��ֱ��London Underground paradox could have implications for debates on police priorities in an age of austerity, such as the benefits of investigating past crimes compared with the benefits of preventing future crimes,” Sherman said.

London’s Underground opened in 1863, the first underground railway in the world, and provides more than 1.3 billion passenger rides per year.

̽��ֱ��majority of crime in the transport network occurs on the trains and in concourse areas. Crime on platforms constitute 11% of the total, and historically platforms have had no regular police patrols.

As such, platforms offered an opportunity to conduct an experiment on spaces within a major metropolis that had never seen proactive police presence – ideal for gauging patrol effectiveness without previous 'contamination', say researchers.

“Platforms are small, stable and confined places with finite entry and exit points. These characteristics make them optimal for measuring the localised deterrence effects of police patrols,” said first author Dr Barak Ariel.

“We wanted to measure what happens when police patrols are introduced into an urban environment for the first time in over 150 years.”

̽��ֱ��team targeted 'hot spots' – areas where crime is more concentrated, and preventative patrols can have greatest effect – by ranking stations based on the previous year’s crime rates, and including the top 115 of Greater London’s 270 stations in the experiment.

Researchers also narrowed the experiment’s focus based on 'hot hours' and 'hot days'. Previous data showed the sample platforms experienced more crime and calls to police from Wednesday to Saturday between 3pm and 10pm.

Twenty uniformed BTP officers were selected and trained to work exclusively on patrolling the platforms of the 'treatment' stations during 'hot' days and hours. Each two-person unit was allocated between three and five stations, with platforms patrolled for 15 minutes four times a day.

Officers were asked to conduct these patrols in a random or unpredictable order within the 'hot hours', and encouraged to engage with the public while patrolling.

Police were most effective at preventing platform crime during periods and days when patrols were scheduled – but just 3% of that reduction came when officers were actually scheduled to patrol.

̽��ֱ��researchers also found 'regional' effects: crime in the rest of the station fell almost as much as crime on platforms during the four days when regular patrols were deployed.

“Our findings indicate that consistent patrols can cause large reductions in both crime and emergency calls in areas that have never before been proactively patrolled by police in this way,” added Sherman.

“ ̽��ֱ��more that uniformed police have been there, and the more recently, the less likely future crimes may be to occur.”

This story was amended on 17/01/20 to include additional details from the paper on reductions in crime.

A major experiment introducing proactive policing to Underground platforms finds that short bursts of patrolling create a 'phantom effect': 97% of the resulting crime reduction was during periods when police weren’t actually present.

̽��ֱ��London Underground paradox could have implications for debates on police priorities in an age of austerity

Lawrence Sherman

Marco Chilese

London Tube station

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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London’s forgotten businesswomen

ta385 — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 07:00:00 +0000

A new exhibition celebrates the City of London's 18th-century female entrepreneurs

Children who walk to school less likely to be overweight or obese, study suggests

sc604 — Mon, 20 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Based on results from more than 2000 primary-age schoolchildren from across London, the researchers found that walking or cycling to school is a strong predictor of obesity levels, a result which was consistent across neighbourhoods, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. ̽��ֱ��results are reported in the journal BMC Public Health.

̽��ֱ��study, led by researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, is the first to assess the impact of physical activity on childhood overweight and obesity levels for primary schoolchildren by simultaneously relating two of the main types of extracurricular physical activity: daily commuting to school and frequency of participation in sport.

Instead of using Body-mass index (BMI) as a measure of obesity, the researchers measured body fat and muscle mass and assessed how these were correlated with physical activity levels. BMI is the most commonly-used metric to measure obesity levels due to its simplicity, however, it is limited as BMI looks at total weight, including ‘healthy’ muscle mass, rather than fat mass alone.

“Both BMI itself and the points at which high BMI is associated with poor health vary with age, sex and ethnicity,” said Lander Bosch, a PhD candidate in Cambridge’s Department of Geography, and the study’s first author. “While adjustments have been made in recent years to account for these variations, BMI remains a flawed way to measure the health risks associated with obesity.”

̽��ֱ��current research is based on data from the Size and Lung Function in Children (SLIC) study, carried out at ̽��ֱ�� College London between 2010 and 2013. More than 2000 London primary schoolchildren, from a range of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, were included in the study, which looked at their physical activity levels, body composition and socioeconomic status.

Close to half of children in the study took part in sport every day, and a similar proportion actively commuted to school, travelling on foot, by bicycle or scooter. ̽��ֱ��researchers found that children who actively commuted to school had lower body fat, and therefore were less likely to be overweight or obese.

Paradoxically, using conventional BMI percentiles, children who took part in sport every day appeared more likely to be overweight or obese than those who engaged in sport less than once a week. However, when looking at fat mass and muscle mass separately, children who engaged in sport every day had significantly more muscle development, while their fat mass did not significantly differ.

“ ̽��ֱ��link between frequent participation in sport and obesity levels has generated inconsistent findings in previous research, but many of these studies were looking at BMI only,” said Bosch. “However, when looking at body fat instead, we showed there was a trend whereby children who were not active were more likely to be overweight or obese. It’s likely that when looking at BMI, some inactive children aren’t classified as obese due to reduced muscle mass.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say that it is vital to understand the relationship between obesity levels and different types of physical activity in order to develop informed policy measures that could contribute to the reversal of the childhood obesity epidemic.

“Our findings suggest that interventions promoting regular participation in sports, and particularly active commuting to school could be promising for combating childhood obesity – it’s something so easy to implement, and it makes such a big difference,” said Bosch.

̽��ֱ��research was funded in part by the Wellcome Trust, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Reference:
Lander S.M.M. Bosch et al. ‘Associations of extracurricular physical activity patterns and body composition components in a multi-ethnic population of UK children (the Size and Lung Function in Children study): a multilevel modelling analysis.’ BMC Public Health (2019). DOI: 10.1186/s12889-019-6883-1

Children who regularly walk or cycle to school are less likely to be overweight or obese than those who travel by car or public transport, a new study suggests.

̽��ֱ��link between frequent participation in sport and obesity levels has generated inconsistent findings in previous research, but many of these studies were looking at BMI only

Lander Bosch

Ivy Dawned

Walking to school

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Knife crime: assault data can help forecast fatal stabbings

fpjl2 — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 10:23:41 +0000

Knife crime data from a 12-month period could be used to help forecast the London neighbourhoods most likely to suffer a fatal stabbing the following year, according to latest research.

Historian uncovers new evidence of 18th century London's 'Child Support Agency'

sjr81 — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 15:05:44 +0000

Dr Samantha Williams’ Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis: 1700-1850 reveals, using London’s few surviving ‘bastardy books’, how the parishes of Lambeth, Southwark and Chelsea chased the fathers of illegitimate babies – and the lengths some errant fathers went to in order to escape not only their moral and financial obligations, but the clutches of parish constables and the feared houses of correction.

Read the full Shorthand story

How 18th and 19th century London supported its unmarried mothers and illegitimate children – essentially establishing an earlier version of today’s Child Support Agency – is the subject of newly-published research by a Cambridge historian.

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