Untitled - Malaysian Institute of Planners

Saniah Ahmad Zaki & Jamalunlaili AbdullahThe Relationship Between Variations of Grid Layout and BurglaryFINDINGSi. At the area levela. Relationship between characteristics of areas and burglary rateAt this level the variations in the spatial distribution of burglary in residentialareas was first examined. This was done by comparing the relationship ofburglary rate with spatial characteristics between areas. For this purposeburglary rate was calculated based on the number of burglary per one thousand(1000) houses. A data table of six case study areas was constructed, that includespatial pattern type, degree of connectivity, total number of houses, breakdownof house type, permeability index, and three-year period burglary data (Table 1).The table shows that out of the six areas, three (Areas 1, 2 and 3) havemore than 20 burglaries per 1000 houses and the other three (Areas 4, 5 and 6)have less than 20 burglaries per 1000 houses. Why are some areas safer withlower burglary rate but others higher? Although, it may initially appear thatareas with spatial characteristics indexed on a scale of 1 and 2 (from veryregular layout to less regular) has higher burglary rate, Area 3 that is indexed ona scale of 3 has also high burglary rate. Ironically, Areas 5 and 6 which are alsospatially indexed on the scale of 3, have lower burglary rates. Similarly, thedegree of grid when visually analysed does not appear to be related to burglaryrate. Among three areas indexed as 4 (partially impure grid), Area 3 has highburglary rate, whereas the other two areas (Areas 4 and 6), lower rate. In aregression analysis, it is shown that the degree of grid is moderately related toburglary rate (Figure 1) with an r-squared of 0.451. Nonetheless the p-value inthe ANOVA table indicates that the relationship is weakly significant.© 2012 by MIP 26