Dr. MacDonald was interviewed for the latest season of the Boston Fed’s podcast, Six Hundred Atlantic. The topic is racial disparities in the U.S.
Researchers say it's often relatively small sections of high-crime neighborhoods that drive crime rates. University of Pennsylvania criminologist John MacDonald calls these places areas of "concentrated disadvantage". These aren't just places where poverty, joblessness, family disruption, or social isolation is high - all those things are problems. MacDonald says theses relatively small clusters can generate at least 50% of a city's crime, so lowering crime there would have an outsized impact of decreasing crime and racial disparities.
https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/six-hundred-atlantic/season/three...