

Predicting and Plotting Crime in Seattle - racketracer
https://racketracer.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/predicting-and-plotting-crime-in-seattle/

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danbruc
The maps lack normalization by population density. But even that might be
misleading, for example industrial areas having low population densities but
nonetheless a lot of people in the area during working hours. And while
population density might be relevant for some crimes it might be irrelevant
for others. Where not to park your car is probably better normalized by the
number of parking spaces or even the number of cars present. So don't try to
read to much out of maps or charts not specifically crafted to answer the
question you are interested in.

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gus_massa
I agree, but they are nice visualizations nevertheless. Relevant xkcd:
[http://xkcd.com/1138/](http://xkcd.com/1138/)

I don't know Seatle, but it looks like the major highways / avenues are
highlighted in these crime maps, perhaps they don't have too much population
or parking lots but they have a lot of traffic. (I don't know Seatle, perhaps
they do have a lot of population and parking lots.)

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squidfood
The hotspots north of the band of water (canals) are definitely lower-income
concentration areas; a couple of them highways with seedy hotels
(prostitution/drugs).

The main blob is "city center". Some low income areas in there don't look very
visible at this scale, but also "where everyone is out on streets" (work in
daytime, nightlife at night).

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racketracer
I think that a really cool feature, that I am not sure if it has been
implemented or not, is a date package that can do a lot of splicing. If I
wanted to know the exact day of the week, sunset time or dusk time, or isolate
specific hours without tons of tedious work in Pandas. It would probably help
out with normalizing population density such as downtown when not in the
working hours but maybe on weekends.

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seanhandley
"Plotting crime" \- great word choice :D

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racketracer
Pun completely intended

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marcodena
I think you should better read works like this one:
[http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.2983](http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.2983)

