Aggressive Graffiti in Los Angeles

I surveyed all the gang graffiti and identified the places where aggressive graffiti was the most prevalent. I designated an address for each occurance and matched it to a street file of South Los Angeles. I categorized each location as either boundary, near boundary, or interior.

This analysis explored the extent to which aggressive graffiti messages are found on the boundaries of gang territories more so than the interior. Special attention was given to the hypothesis put forth by geographers David Ley and Roman Cybriwsky stating that the most aggressive graffiti is found at the boundaries of gang territories (1974). This map reveals that the same pattern was found among Los Angeles gang graffiti written by Black gangs.