placestats

Owner-occupied housing units and Robbery rate

Where Owner-occupied housing units is higher, Robbery rate tends to be higher. The link is weak: +0.31 across 2,281 counties, on a scale from −1 (opposite) to +1 (in step). That figure compares places with the same population density, income and education, so those differences can't explain it. It holds inside states too. Measured separately within each of 36 states, the middle value of the link is +0.67.

Holds after adjusting

Every place, plotted

One dot for each place reporting both measures. Hover over or tap a dot to see its name and values. The thin line is the straight line that best fits the dots. The bold line, shown for counties, is the link after adjusting for density, income and education. A dot far from the lines is a place that does not follow the pattern.

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What each measure is

Owner-occupied housing units

Lived-in homes where the people living there own the home.

Census ACS 5-year · ACS table B25003_002

Robbery rate

Robberies in the year, per 100,000 residents, from the FBI. A robbery is taking something from a person by force or by threat, such as a mugging. It counts only crimes reported to police or found by them, so crimes nobody reports are missing. For a state, the figure is the FBI's estimate, which fills in for police agencies that did not report. For a county, it is only what the agencies reported, and it is shown only where agencies that reported for all 12 months serve at least 90% of the people who live there.

FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program (Crime Data Explorer) · FBI Crime Data Explorer: states, estimated_crimes robbery; counties, Return A master file, actual offenses

Highest and lowest

Where each measure is highest and lowest among the places reporting both (2023), with the other measure beside it. This is shown for every size of place where both are published. Metro-area values are added up from their counties. A measure that cannot be added up across counties, such as a middle value (median), has no metro figure. Counts are shown per 1,000 residents, since raw totals would only list the largest places. Cities and towns and ZIP codes are shown where the Census survey or the CDC publishes them; most other sources stop at the county. They are shown for places of 5,000 residents or more, and only where the survey’s margin of error is small enough for the figure to be usable. The CDC publishes its health estimates for cities in a version adjusted for age, so places with older or younger people can be compared fairly, but not for ZIP codes.

Counties

By owner-occupied housing units

Owner-occupied housing units, per 1,000 residentsRobbery rate
Highest
Keweenaw County, MI474.830
Montmorency County, MI445.690
Alcona County, MI444.810
Ontonagon County, MI442.760
Jeff Davis County, TX437.360
Lowest
Madison County, ID95.950
North Slope Borough, AK100.279.35
Sioux County, ND129.590
Hudson County, NJ129.7287.7
Harrisonburg city, VA134.4327.5

By robbery rate

Owner-occupied housing units, per 1,000 residentsRobbery rate
Highest
District of Columbia, DC196.84625
Baltimore city, MD206.31584
Alameda County, CA194.14371
San Francisco County, CA166.93361
Philadelphia County, PA221.27339
Lowest
Washington County, CO306.880
San Miguel County, CO324.820
San Juan County, CO291.300
Saguache County, CO375.980
Phillips County, CO310.180
States

By owner-occupied housing units

Owner-occupied housing units, per 1,000 residentsRobbery rate
Highest
Maine316.5611.7
Vermont304.0014.6
West Virginia300.4211.4
Wyoming295.4711.6
Michigan293.1136.9
Lowest
California190.99128
District of Columbia196.84607
New York209.58105
Hawaii211.5849.6
Nevada223.4775.4

By robbery rate

Owner-occupied housing units, per 1,000 residentsRobbery rate
Highest
District of Columbia196.84607
Maryland255.84131
California190.99128
Illinois263.38110
New York209.58105
Lowest
Idaho265.229.39
West Virginia300.4211.4
Wyoming295.4711.6
Maine316.5611.7
Vermont304.0014.6
Metro areas

By owner-occupied housing units

Owner-occupied housing units, per 1,000 residentsRobbery rate
Highest
Wildwood-The Villages, FL389.135.1
Port Townsend, WA381.892.96
Barnstable Town, MA357.9711.5
Marinette, WI-MI354.120
Punta Gorda, FL352.541.9
Lowest
Rexburg, ID129.960
Merced, CA154.48102
El Centro, CA154.8835.7
Hanford-Corcoran, CA157.0326.7
Salinas, CA160.2787.7

By robbery rate

Owner-occupied housing units, per 1,000 residentsRobbery rate
Highest
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA210.42235
Memphis, TN-MS-AR234.83234
Stockton-Lodi, CA185.43194
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD262.32178
Pueblo, CO273.45166
Lowest
Zapata, TX250.580
Yankton, SD300.890
Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA280.710
Warren, PA337.590
Urbana, OH306.110
Cities and towns — Robbery rate is not published for cities and towns

By owner-occupied housing units

Owner-occupied housing units, per 1,000 residentsRobbery rate
Highest
Crestwood Village CDP, NJ645.96—
Holiday City-Berkeley CDP, NJ578.71—
Leisure World CDP, MD566.55—
The Villages CDP, FL541.48—
Pelican Bay CDP, FL540.53—
Lowest
Fort Carson CDP, CO0.00—
Air Force Academy CDP, CO0.00—
Camp Pendleton Mainside CDP, CA0.00—
North Fort Lewis CDP, WA0.00—
Lackland AFB CDP, TX0.00—
ZIP codes — Robbery rate is not published for ZIP codes

By owner-occupied housing units

Owner-occupied housing units, per 1,000 residentsRobbery rate
Highest
ZIP 32162 (The Villages CDP, FL)543.81—
ZIP 85351 (Sun City CDP, AZ)537.84—
ZIP 85375 (Sun City West CDP, AZ)522.68—
ZIP 32976 (Brevard County, FL)521.38—
ZIP 34228 (Longboat Key town, FL)520.10—
Lowest
ZIP 01003 (Amherst Town city, MA)0.00—
ZIP 99703 (Fairbanks city, AK)0.00—
ZIP 99505 (Anchorage municipality, AK)0.00—
ZIP 93410 (California Polytechnic State University CDP, CA)0.00—
ZIP 93106 (University of California-Santa Barbara CDP, CA)0.00—

Counties furthest from the pattern

Compared with the straight line that best fits all 2,288 counties: the five with far more robbery rate than their owner-occupied housing units would suggest, and the five with far less.

Owner-occupied housing units, per 1,000 residentsRobbery rate
Above the line
District of Columbia, DC196.84625
Baltimore city, MD206.31584
Alameda County, CA194.14371
San Francisco County, CA166.93361
Philadelphia County, PA221.27339
Below the line
Madison County, ID95.950
North Slope Borough, AK100.279.35
Sioux County, ND129.590
Lake County, TN136.750
Lexington city, VA143.530

Two series, one county

Both measures over time for a county you pick. The two charts are stacked, so they share only the years along the bottom. You can pick from the thirty largest counties reporting both. This panel covers 2010–2024, and a measure published only once shows as a single dot.

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Every version of the link

Each row measures the same link, from −1 to +1, in a different way. If the rows mostly agree, the link does not depend on one choice of method.

Before adjusting for anything+0.4632,281 counties reporting both
After adjusting for density, income and education+0.309the part of the link that is not just how urban, rich and educated a place is
Also adjusting for population size+0.243size taken out as well as density
Also comparing only within each state+0.262each county is compared only with others in its own state, so this is no longer a comparison between states
Giving bigger counties more weight+0.322the adjusted link for the average resident rather than the average county. With this weighting, the data counts for about 227 equally weighted counties
Middle value inside single states+0.665the link worked out inside each of 36 states with at least 20 counties reporting
Using ranks, after adjusting+0.324uses each county’s rank, not its value, so a few extreme counties cannot create the link

How much to believe it

Could it be chance?

The p-value is the chance of seeing a link this strong if there were really none. A value of 0.05 or less means the link is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 3.1e-16 means 0.00000000000000031, and the bigger the number after “e-”, the smaller the value. Treating every county as a separate case gives p = 1.3e-51. But counties in the same state tend to resemble each other, so the better figure allows for that: p = 1.4e-9. The site tested 29,403 pairs, and testing so many turns up some flukes. The q-value allows for that too. For this pair it is 8.5e-51.

Do nearby places look alike?

Moran’s I measures how much nearby places look alike: 0 means no map pattern, and higher means neighbours are more similar. For the part of each county that the adjustment leaves unexplained, it is +0.21 (p = 0.001). That unexplained part still clusters on the map. So some regional factor shared by both measures is not accounted for.

Did they change together?

The figures above compare counties at one moment. This asks a different question: where owner-occupied housing units rose most, did robbery ratemove too? Each county’s change is compared with the average change in its own state. That takes out ups and downs that hit a whole region at once. Each change is the gap between two estimates that both contain some error. That error pulls these links towards zero, so a weak one is weak partly for that reason. The q column shows whether a link could be a fluke, allowing for the many pairs tested: 0.05 or less means it is unlikely to be chance.

PeriodCountiesChange togetherWithin statesq
2014–2019 the main test: each Census survey figure averages five years, and these two do not overlap; before the pandemic2,020-0.00+0.020.721
2019–2023 a repeat check: its two five-year survey figures both include 2019, and it covers the COVID years1,883-0.05-0.060.050

Over the main period, any link between the changes could easily be chance. How change is measured.

Related pairs

Association only. Nothing here shows that either measure changes the other. This describes counties, not the people in them. Two measures going together across places does not mean the same people have both. How the US county data works · Explore Owner-occupied housing units and Robbery rate