Originally Posted by
Shai_Hulud
Basic crime/law enforcement theory says otherwise. Have you ever been to Detroit?
There is a difference between a normal level of available housing stock that is maintained, surveilled and policed and an abandoned, open to the elements house in a neighborhood that is 50% abandoned, open to the elements houses that the police don't bother with.
An abandoned house provides a target for crime [[arson, scrapping, vandalism), a means to commit the crime, [[arson, scrapping, vandalism, prostitution, drugs), a barrier to visibility and surveillance [[an incentive to all crime), a high payoff for all of the above criminals because now they can take their sweet time, and most importantly, a very low chance of getting caught.
Remove the abandoned house and you have removed all of the above. Now, criminals cannot operate with impunity and some will effectively be deterred from committing crimes. For those that don't the entire city, or at least large swaths of it, is a much harder target. Now, we have a snow ball's chance in hell of catching criminals when they commit crimes.
Pie in the sky stuff, I know.