Crime on Postbuyout Open Space: Resident Perceptions Versus Reported Events in Harris County, Texas

In the aftermath of environmental disasters, communities across the globe are implementing household relocation programs as hazard mitigation strategies. In the United States, these programs are known as buyouts, which relocate people and structures out of high-risk areas, managing the acquired land as open space. Typically, buyout open spaces are managed as vacant lots, which more generally are associated with increased crime and blight. Using a mixed-methods approach of hot spot and harmspot analyses in geographic information systems, a visual analysis of photographs of buyout areas, and resident interviews in Harris County, Texas, from 2014 to 2022, we examined spatial patterns of reported crime and residents’ perceptions of crime on buyout open space. Although our visual analysis suggests the perception of prevalent crime in buyout areas, the spatial analysis shows only minimal hot spots of high reported crime areas in buyout neighborhoods. Additionally, resident interviews suggest infrequent crime and safety issues. This study provides an important first step in understanding the relationship between reported and perceived crime in buyout open space with opportunities for future scholarship.