Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

TABLE 6. Population, Crime and Upward Light Energy Loss in USA Cities
City
Population,
thousands
UCR Index
Crime
Number,
thousands
Annual
Upward Light
Energy Loss,
GW.h
Annual
Upward Light
Energy Loss
per Person,
kW.h
Year 1998 1998 1997 1997/1998
New York City NY 7 358 323.2 136 18.5
Minneapolis MN 362.1 34.62 122 (47.7) 337 (132)
St Louis MO 344.2 51.46 93.0 (45.6) 270 (132)
Kansas City MO 447.7 53.73 71.5 (47.0) 160 (105)
Phoenix AZ 1 226 104.7 55.0 44.9
Philadelphia PA 1 449 106.1 48.5 33.5
Washington DC 523.0 46.17 41.8 79.9
Las Vegas NV 908.6 53.12 38.0 41.8
Denver CO 509.3 27.03 29.4 (19.3) 57.7 (38.0)
Baltimore MD 662.3 72.50 29.2 44.1
Portland OR 488.8 46.07 22.2 45.4
Buffalo NY 308.6 22.32 20.0 (13.2) 64.8 (42.6)
Boston MA 559.6 34.98 15.0 26.8
Sacramento CA 384.7 31.62 14.9 38.7
Tucson AZ 467.7 45.30 13.2 28.2
Fresno CA 404.3 32.08 6.66 16.5
Stockton CA 239.7 17.53 3.68 15.4
Modesto CA 183.3 12.35 3.03 16.5
Salem OR 126.4 10.58 2.36 18.7
Eugene OR 127.2 11.46 2.09 16.4
Boulder CO 94.21 4.899 1.27 13.5
The cities in Table 5 are here listed in descending order of their annual total upward
light energy loss observed by satellite (Isobe and Hamamura 1998). Estimated
values for no-snow conditions are shown in parentheses. Population and number of
UCR Index crimes are from the sources given in Table 5. Population is plotted in
Figure 8 against light energy loss per unit area from Table 5. The no-snow light
energy loss data are plotted in Figures 9 and 10.
66
5.2.3.2
Investi
gation
of
appare
nt
outlier
s
Table 6
contain
s
additio
nal
inform
ation
relating
to
crime
and
light
energy
loss for
USA
cities.
The
annual
total
upward
ly
radiate
d light
energy
loss
values
in
Table 6 are analogous to luminous intensity maintained for a given time. To test for possible
anomalies in the DMSP data, these values were plotted in Figure 8 against city population for
each of the 21 cities. Many others have already made plots of light losses against
demographic and related variables. NASA (2000) stated that the areal extent of city light
sources is highly correlated with electric power consumption and population. The total light
emitted by each city is less well correlated with population (Isobe and Hamamura 1998), as is
indicated by the nearly six-hundredfold range of variation shown in the rightmost column of