Features of a landscape can influence and enable behavior. Consider a place where children repeatedly play. When we step back from our focus on the cluster of children, we might realize that located where they play exists swings, slides and open fields. These features of the place (i.e. suggestive of a playground) attract children there instead of other locations that are absent such entertaining qualities. In a similar way, spatial factors can influence the seriousness and longevity of crime problems. (These children aren’t criminals; the analogy is benign in that respect). What risk terrain modeling (RTM) does is to identify the risks that come from features of a landscape and model how they co-locate to create unique behavior settings for crime.
http://www.riskterrainmodeling.com/
