Auto Theft in Vancouver:
Time, Transit, and Zoning
Zoning and Auto Theft
Using both the Zoning Districts layer and the Auto Theft layer, a new field was created within Auto Theft which displayed the category of the zoning district. Using this information, the percentage share of auto thefts could be compared between zoning districts.
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While the Percentage of Crimes per Zoning Type Graph offers important insight into the relationship between auto theft and zoning, it fails to represent risk. In order to determine the degree of risk associate with each zoning class, a denomenator to normalize the percentage of crimes was required. Because data on the number of cars present in a given area at any given time is not readily available and would be serverely restricted in temporal resolution, the total area of each zoning district was used to normalize the data. Below are two maps which display the difference that normalization makes in regards to which areas of Vancouver present a larger risk.
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While auto theft occurs throughout the city, there may be particular zoning types which attract more auto theft. To examine the relationship between auto theft and zoning, a zoning districts layer was downloaded from the City of Vancouver. Zoning is a valuable variable to examine as it acts as a proxy for the built environment.