Jessica Colby

Regent Park was a community developed to provide housing for new immigrants and war veterans in the post war period of the 1940s and 1950s. The development of Regent Park would change the existing community, a neighbourhood that was home to large numbers of poor, Irish immigrants, by physically cutting off the neighbourhood from the surrounding and by transforming it to a neighbourhood for low-income families which would later become plagued with high levels of violent crime. The current revitalization of Regent Park is in keeping with “de-concentration *of poverty+ by demolition” initiatives that aim to transform severely distressed social housing into “healthy” and “sustainable” neighbourhoods. Over the next 10 to 15 years, RP will be transformed from a rent geared to income social housing development to one that is home to people of varied economic backgrounds. Plans for revitalization were approved in 2003, and with construction began in 2006. The following study will examine the community and the revitalization process in order to hypothesize the effects that gentrification may have on neighbourhood level violent crime rates. The criminological perspectives rational choice theory, routine activity theory, strain theory, and social disorganization theory will be examined along with research on the effects of gentrification to provide a context for understanding the possible relationship between neighbourhood change and violent crime in Regent Park.