[imdsm]

I don't think we can isolate any one variable.

Poverty does tend to correlate to crime, but poverty never exists in a vacuum. Population density probably has a greater bearing on crime, and poverty and population tend to go hand in hand in metropolitan areas.

If you have an area that is poor but has few people, there'll probably be less crime, as less people means it's easier to track each person socially, and thus there's more accountability.

I'm sure there are studies that show optimal 'tribe' sizes, and I know from experience how different orgs can be from small teams to large teams, so it stands to reason that the key driver is probably population density.

we have to differentiate between 'low level' crime and 'high level' crime, e.g. fraud, financial crime, all of those super-rich organised crime