The Structural Geography of Firearm Violence: Poverty, Opportunity and Shooting Victim Concentrations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Abstract

In the United States, firearm violence remains highly concentrated within a relatively small number of urban neighborhoods despite substantial post-pandemic declines in shootings across many cities. This study examines whether enduring poverty and neighborhood structural and opportunity-related characteristics are associated with fatal and nonfatal shootings in Philadelphia. Shooting victim data were aggregated to census tracts and analyzed using Generalized Cross Entropy (GCE) models. Independent variables were drawn from the public U.S. Census, U.S. Department of Agriculture Poverty Area Measures, and Child Opportunity Index data. Results indicated that all structural and opportunity factors were significantly associated with shooting counts while controlling for temporal and spatial lags of shootings. The model demonstrated substantial predictive power. Taken together, the findings suggest that contemporary shooting concentrations reflect multiple dimensions of structural disadvantage, including long-term poverty, neighborhood decline, housing conditions, and unequal access to neighborhood resources and opportunities. Replication across additional cities is needed to determine whether these relationships generalize across urban contexts and to clarify the mechanisms linking neighborhood conditions to firearm violence.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Social Sciences, 2026 · DOI ↗