Is a New Hospital an Interim Solution to Violent Crime?

The City of Brotherly Love is in disarray. Philadelphia is currently having its most violent year in city history and despite breaking the homicide record from 1990, nothing is being done.

Crime rates in cities across the US soared during the pandemic. Many of these cities have seen their crime rates drop closer to normal recently. Philadelphia, on the other hand, has remained elevated and continues to rise. It is safe to say Philadelphia is dealing with a major crisis when there is an average of 11 homicides a week.

It's time to address that there is a serious issue. To minimize the number of lives lost while those in charge and city officials do something about the gun violence, a new hospital is needed in Southwest Philadelphia.

Larry Krasner, Philadelphia's District Attorney, has shared some of his thoughts on the situation recently, claiming Philadelphia is in fact not experiencing a gun violence emergency. This has finally sparked some outrage and even has former city leaders speaking out:

I have to wonder what kind of messed up world of white wokeness Krasner is living in to have so little regard for human lives lost — many of them black and brown — while he advances his own national profile as a progressive District Attorney. - Michael Nutter

As you can see to the right, violent crime in 2021 is citywide issue, just as it has been for prior years. Plotting homicides, rapes, assaults, robberies and crimes with firearms, based on severity, creates an alarming picture of the city.

Further analysis of violent crime, specifically shootings, leads to a clear observation. There are an immense number of shootings that occur in Southwest Philadelphia that do not benefit from the same proximity to hospitals as other parts of the city. While the likelihood of mortality in a shooting is dependent on many factors including wound location, projectile type, type of weapon, number of wounds, and more, it is a fair assumption to conclude the chances of death increase as travel time to a hospital increases.

Shootings and homicide rates in the city are higher now than ever before. The city of Philadelphia broke the 1990 homicides record. More shootings are resulting in more deaths.

Philadelphia is home to some great hospitals. This is important for shooting victimizations. When someone is actually shot and hit with a projectile, proximity to a hospital, and specifically a good hospital, could be the difference between life and death.

Overlapping these two layers gives us a better idea of what proximity to hospitals means for shooting victims. In the map below, the lines connect hospitals and each individual shooting, representing the nearest hospital that the shooting incident would likely travel to. The color of these lines becomes darker as the travel time increases. The oddly shaped boundaries are areas within 5 minutes of driving to a hospital.

Most of the city's shootings fall within or very near these drive time boundaries. However, the shooting incidents in Southwest Philadelphia are all subject to much higher travel times to the nearest city hospital. Again, this cannot be good for the chances of surviving a shooting in this area. Additionally, these lines do not take traffic into account; the travel times in this area may be even longer when a shooting actually occurs. Pair this elongated drive time with the response time from an ambulance and the risk of a fatality continues to increase.

While a new hospital does nothing to stop the gun violence the city continues to welcome, it does address the gap in medical care for this part of the city and will easily surpass the effort in saving lives from gun violence that the city has shown.

The location of this new hospital should be placed in relation to the location and flow of these Southwest Philadelphia incidents. By analyzing just these shootings, we can find the mean center of this area. In a perfect scenario, a new hospital could be built directly on that point, but this area is already developed land. The ellipse to the right represents the flow of the shootings, and a site should be selected within this ellipse. It will ensure proximity to the mean center while accounting for existing land use challenges.

The land cover raster separates land cover into 7 categories:

1. Tree Canopy (dark green)
2. Grass/Shrub (light green)
3. Bare Earth (pink)
4. Water (blue)
5. Buildings (dark gray)
6. Roads (red)
7. Other Paved Surfaces (light gray)

This leaves two plots of land available and realistically capable of having a hospital. The southernmost rectangular plot with a large section of bare earth and pavement is a perfect spot for the new hospital. This is a non-intrusive site that requires no developed land to be repurposed. This hospital also benefits those in these neighborhoods. Before, any time sensitive medical issue would be subject to the same long travel times or the individual would have to visit a hospital outside of the city.

When the same drive time analysis is ran for hospitals including the new hospital in Southwest Philadelphia, drivetimes in that area are severely cut down. Again, the construction of a new hospital will not actually combat gun violence, but it will hopefully decrease the number of lives lost. The fact that this type of project can even be considered is proof of two things: the city of Philadelphia is in the midst of a gun violence emergency and that the city of Philadelphia is not doing enough to tackle the issues that result in violent crime.