Geospatial associations between property crimes and urban facilities: empirical evidence from Nagpur, India

Abstract Purpose Crime is known to concentrate in micro places, with urban facilities often acting as crime generators or attractors. While studies in the Global North have widely examined the association between urban facilities and property crime, systematic empirical evidence from Global South cities remains limited. This study investigates how different categories of urban facilities are associated with property crime in Nagpur, India. Methods Police-recorded incidents of property crimes like robbery, burglary, and theft were spatially analyzed in relation to eighteen categories of urban facilities, including ATMs, banks, markets, schools, hospitals, and transit places. Kernel Density Estimation was used to delineate 341 sub-zones of varying crime intensity. Location Quotient quantified the relative geospatial distribution of property crimes and urban facilities. Multiple Linear Regression models were employed to assess statistical associations between property crimes and urban facilities. Results The analysis reveals systematic associations between property crimes and urban facilities: robbery clustered around hospitals and markets, burglary around banks, colleges, schools, religious places, and shops, and theft around a wide array of urban facilities, including ATMs, bars, hotels, and office buildings. Conclusions These findings highlight the importance of integrating urban facility-based risk factors into crime-prevention strategies. Targeted interventions, such as enhanced surveillance, place management, and design modifications at high-crime urban facilities, can be more effective than uniform citywide measures. This study advances environmental criminology by extending empirical evidence to a Global South context and demonstrating a replicable geospatial assessment framework.