Similarities Between Chicago And Los Angeles

A major distinction, among others, between Chicago and Los Angeles is that the immigrant neighborhoods are different as Chicago immigrant neighborhoods have roughly half the violent crime rate when compared to other Chicago neighborhoods, whereas in Los Angeles, immigrant neighborhoods have greater violent crime rates compared to other neighborhoods. Kubrin and Ishizawa (2012) focused on two different immigrant neighborhoods for both Chicago and Los Angeles. In Chicago, one neighborhood was located at the north end of the city, while the other was located in the center of the city; both Chicago neighborhoods had average crime rates that were lower than the average crime rate of Chicago as a whole. The two neighborhoods in Los Angeles, one

north of downtown and the other south of the city, did not exhibit similar crime rates. The neighborhood farther south had an increased crime rate almost triple the crime rate of the northern neighborhood. Kubrin and Ishizawa (2012) did not give a panacea as to why the second Los Angeles neighborhood had an increased crime rate, but instead acknowledged, in a broader view, that context is important and provided a few possible explanations for what could be impacting the crime rates.
The first explanation, consistent with social disorganization theory, is that racial and ethnic diversity may be associated with high crime rates in communities. An example of racial and ethnic diversity being a factor would be if one ethnic group benefited from certain opportunities that are only available for that one group. A second explanation also consistent with social disorganization theory relates to residential turnover among immigrants. Residential turnover refers to the situation in which immigrants migrate to areas such as old central parts of cities where they have a connection to family or friends, then resettle in another location once they have obtained some economic stability, leaving their previous settlement to develop informal social control and higher crime levels. A third explanation relates to the generational status of immigrants, such as first or second or even third generations. The study includes that more assimilated immigrants tend to have higher crime rates. A final explanation for the increased crime rates in some immigrant neighborhoods is the issue of differentiation in structural conditions in surrounding neighborhoods as the other neighborhoods may be more or less advantaged than an immigrant neighborhood.