[abs314159]

Could you normalize at the census tract level? Better yet, assign average occupants, shoppers, cars parked, etc. to the locations at which the crime occurred.

A bigger issue is variance in less dense areas. It looks like what you're doing today is simple counts whereas for areas with lower crime rates, more history might provide a more stable crime rate. It might also be useful to weight against a demographic prediction of crime or at least average the crime rate over the period that the demographic prediction is stable.

[sukuriant]

> A bigger issue is variance in less dense areas. It looks like what you're doing today is simple counts whereas for areas with lower crime rates, more history might provide a more stable crime rate. It might also be useful to weight against a demographic prediction of crime or at least average the crime rate over the period that the demographic prediction is stable.

The purpose of this tool seems to be to decide where to live. Since the demographics of cities change over the years, what is the advantage of looking at more-past demographics?

Second, demographic instability is a very real attribute of neighborhoods, and it may be correlated with higher crime. I imagine you're trying to reduce that visibility. Why? Again, the goal is to give a current view of the crime in the area, not what the crime will look like when things calm down.

In all, I think it's good how it is, as it represents exactly what I would be looking for when I examine crime/local facilities/housing prices.

[Retric]

This is useless for my area 22202 Arlington VA. You basically mark all areas with highrises as red, and areas with single track housing as green. Sorry, if there is a row of 22 story building on one block and 3 blocks away is single family dwellings of course there is going to be more crimes where there is 30x the number of people.

http://www.trulia.com/local/#crimes/washington-dc

PS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ArlingtonTODimage3.jpg High density, mixed use development is often concentrated within 1/4 to 1/2 mile from the County's Metrorail rapid transit stations, such as in Rosslyn, Courthouse, and Clarendon (shown in red from upper left to lower right). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington_County,_Virginia

[sukuriant]

Fair enough. Then make the influence of each crime inversely proportional to the number of people there. All of that said, don't go to the smooth spots of the function that aren't current and declare "this is the crime rate of this place". That was my point