doi:10.1590/dados.2021.64.1.225engGimenez, GTkacheva, LSvitkova, KBarrado, BCities and Violence: An Empirical Analysis of the Case of Costa RicaART-2021-122789This article focuses on the effect of urbanization on violent crime - particularly homicide in Costa Rica. Although violence is a major problem throughout Latin America, few empirical studies carried out in the area use high-quality socioeconomic and crime databases with a high level of geographical disaggregation. In this article, we employ data from all 473 districts of Costa Rica between 2010 and 2013. We develop a model which takes into account endogeneity problems and uses contrasts of marginal linear predictions. We conclude that the degree of urban concentration plays a key role in explaining homicide rates, other things being equal. This effect is progressive: the greater the urban concentration, the greater the increase in homicide rates. This causal relationship is not observed in offenses other than homicide.2021http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/9978110.1590/dados.2021.64.1.225http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/99781oai:zaguan.unizar.es:99781DADOS-REVISTA DE CIENCIAS SOCIAIS 64, 1 (2021), [35 pp]byhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess