A Geographic Analysis of Illegal Drug Markets

Past research has established two important geographic principles concerning the retail sales of illegal drugs: (1) illegal drug markets tend to be spatially concentrated, and (2) the location and marketing characteristics of these markets will vary depending on whether the customers are local or regional. The present research will build on these principles and determine whether the location of illegal drug markets in Wilmington, Delaware can be predicted using variables that measure the relative size of the local demand combined with variables that measure accessibility to regional customers. The data include arrest records from the Wilmington police department for the years 1989, 1990 and 1991 in order to be comparable with the 1990 census data.