The effect of urban form on the occurrence of theft crimes in Mashhad metropolis

The effect of the city’s form on the emergence of crime anomie is logically discussed in the sense that the  form and the social order of the city, cannot be separated. Rather, they develop in parallel and mutually inspire each other. For this purpose, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of urban form on the occurrence of theft crimes in Mashhad. The research method is descriptive-analytical and it is done based on spatial analysis models. The statistical population includes theft crimes in Mashhad in the period of years 1390-1400. In order to analyze the data, ArcGIS, Geoda and Depth map software were used. The results of the research indicate that 58.9 percent of theft crimes have occurred in fine-grained textures. In fact, the regions with the area of ​​51-75 square meters have the highest amount of theft crimes. Investigating the effect of texture classification on theft crimes showed that 60.43 percent of the thefts occurred in peripheral textures (marginal areas of Mashhad, districts 4, 5, 7, 15, 16 and parts of district 13). Also, 19.2 percent of theft crimes occurred in checkered areas (western neighborhoods of Mashhad), 14.6 percent in star areas (the central part of the city and around the holy shrine of Razavi), and 5.7 percent of theft crimes were also committed in middle areas (Region 1 and parts of Region 2). The results of the research indicate that the more land is used, the less amount of theft crimes will occur, so that only 22% of theft crimes occurred in areas with high land-use mix. Investigating the correlation between macro interconnection and theft crimes in Mashhad, showed a positive and significant relationship (correlation coefficient equal to 0.878) between them, which indicates that increasing the interconnection and permeability of the road network, causes the amount of theft crimes to increase. Finally, investigating the effect of urban form on the occurrence of theft crimes, showed that the scattered form pattern with 56.76 percent has a greater effect on theft crimes than the compact form pattern.