Testing the temporal nature of social disorder through abandoned buildings and interstitial spaces

• We examine changes in abandoned buildings and their relationship to social disorder.
• Using photographs, abandoned buildings are studied longitudinally for a year.
• Social disorder is measured using systematic social observations and mixed methods.
• The relationship between abandoned buildings and social disorder is not a trend.
• Backs of buildings, which are typically unstudied, impact this relationship.

With the recent housing crisis, studying abandoned buildings has once again become important. However, it has been some time since abandoned buildings were the subject of direct study, leaving scholars with scant knowledge about the characteristics of abandoned buildings, how they change, and their relationship to neighborhood processes. To fill this gap, we employed longitudinal photographic and SSO evaluations of 36 abandoned buildings and their immediate surroundings in Chicago for one year (n = 587). Results demonstrate the presence and severity of social disorder cues vary across time points and the time of day of observation. There is a relationship between abandoned buildings and social disorder, though the relationship is not a trend. Also, social disorder is diminished around extremely decayed buildings. Lastly, we find that our results are driven by the measurement of places ignored by most SSO studies, including alleys and the rear side of buildings.