Crime and segregation

Metropolitan areas in the United States are characterized by both geographic concentration in robbery rates, and racial segregation in residential patterns. We argue that these two phenomena are closely connected. Robberies typically involve incomplete information about the likelihood of victim resistance and offender violence. Geographic concentration in robbery rates can lead to segregation (in excess of levels that would emerge under neighborhood sorting by income) because robbers prey disproportionately on whites, believing them to be more compliant, and whites protect themselves by moving disproportionately to safer neighborhoods. Hence, conditional on income, blacks live in more dangerous neighborhoods than whites.