A Stochastic Model of the Propagation of Local Fire Fronts in New York City: Implications for Public Policy

A stochastic model of block-level advancing contagious urban decay in New York City, under conditions of inadequate fire extinguishment services, is presented, based on earlier observations that spread of contagious urban decay in small areas of New York involves sudden clusters of fires which propagate from affected blocks to those nearby, as landlords withdraw maintenance services from occupied buildings near damaged structures, in preparation for abandonment. Earlier work on on propagation in time is thus generalized to propagation in space and time. It is found that, under conditions of contagious urban decay, programs of community stabilization, fire prevention, and fire extinguishment may interact synergistically. Thus, failure to address properly the adequacy of available fire extinguishment, and other, related, municipal services, may seriously compromise and undercut community rehabilitation activities. Simple generalization of the stochastic model leads directly to the inference that correlation between spatial patterns of susceptibility to contagious urban decay and to susceptibility to breakdown of municipal services can markedly raise the rate of propagation of urban decay—a phenomenon not as easily seen in deterministic analyses. Suggestions are made for further empirical and theoretical studies, in the context of recently announced and executed further cutbacks of fire extinguishment services provided for poor minority communities of New York City.