OPTIMIZED COMMUNITY CENTER PLACEMENT IN MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

Abstract

Violent crime has risen sharply in Minneapolis in the last two years and with that, youth and teenagers as young as 13 years old participating in violent crime has also seen a sharp increase. With on-going teacher strikes, remote learning, and other factors allowing youth more opportunity to be out of school, Minneapolis can greatly benefit from the implementation of a new community center. Attempting to solve this problem comes with a twofold approach of an overlay analysis, analyzing socio-economic factors, currently occupied and vacant public institutions, and relative crime per neighborhood – then using these same variables with a weighted overlay analysis. The simple overlay approach indicates that a community center would be optimally placed in Northeast Minneapolis however, it should be noted that the relative crime there is far lower than any location the weighted overlay would result in. The results from the weighted analysis are far more practical than the results of the simple overlay would suggest, having more possible locations in North and South Minneapolis. It would be beneficial to talk to community stakeholders and gather their opinion for influence on the weighted overlay for future iterations of this research.