Do Place-Based Crime Reduction Policies Work? : Evidence from the West Philadelphia Promise Zone

This paper studies the effect of the West Philadelphia Promise Zone Initiative on weeklyviolent crime rates in a high-crime area of West Philadelphia, where a series of public safetyand quality of life improvement grants were dispersed from 2014 to 2019. Results using adifference-in-differences analysis with tract, year, and week fixed effects along with cluster-robust and bootstrapped standard errors provides the first causal evidence of a reduced rate of violent crime, primarily assaults and aggravated assaults, attributable to this program. Multiple specifications of a Synthetic Control Model predict that crime would have trended significantly upward in the Promise Zone area had the zone not been established. Dynamic difference-in-differences and propensity score matching are also employed, finding similar results and effect sizes. By the end of 2019, the Promise Zone ultimately descends to the average level of violent crime experienced across Philadelphia. A cost-benefit analysis indicates that the crime reducing effects of the Promise Zone may offset the cost of federal grant investment in public safety in the zone