CityLab Daily: The Suburbanization of Arrests
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What We’re Following
The geography of arrests: Every three seconds, someone gets arrested in the United States. The bulk of those arrests occur in metropolitan areas, and it’s the suburban cities within them that post the highest arrest rates. In 2016, suburban cities had an average of 4,604 arrests per 100,000 people, compared to the 3,332 arrests per 100,000 people within an area’s principal city. That’s according to an analysis by the Vera Institute of Justice, which unveiled a new tool that looks at the geography and demography of arrests in the U.S. since the 1980s.
While crime rates have fallen nationally, it’s not clear why suburban cities are getting a growing share of policing attention. But theories include everything from sprawl increasing driving-related police encounters to the growing economic and racial diversity in the suburbs, which could be eliciting harsher policing responses from local governments. One thing is clear, though: There’s much more to study about how suburban policing affects the national enforcement trends. “By simply focusing on that city, we’re missing the mark,” one researcher tells CityLab’s Tanvi Misra. Read her story: The Suburbanization of Arrests
More on CityLab
Tip the Scales
The scale figure is usually the last thing added into an architect’s rendering. But those little people—known as “scalies”—can us tell a lot about the relationship between people and architecture. In An Unfinished Encyclopedia of Scale Figures Without Architecture, two architects isolated more than 1,000 scalies from the buildings they helped show off. Removed from their usual context, the drawings raise questions about the history of culture and art, and whether architects are thinking more as artists or as technocrats. As one of the authors tells CityLab’s Kriston Capps, “Our responsibilities are as much about the reality of what we make as the imaginary.” Today on CityLab: ‘Scalies,’ the Extras in Architectural Renderings, Finally Get Their Due
What We’re Reading
Impose a speed limit on the Autobahn? Not so fast, many Germans say (New York Times)
Will Pennsylvania convert cash assistance into housing funds? (Next City)
In an unequal America, getting to work can be hell (The Nation)
How California’s state constitution makes affordable housing hard to build (Los Angeles Times)
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