Shaw and McKay (1942) focused their research on the rapidly expanding city of Chicago, Illinois, in the early 1900s. Cullen and Agnew (2011) stated that the population of Chicago is increased from 1 million people in 1890 to double that size within 20 years. According to Cullen and Agnew (2011) it is in this era of rapid expansion that research begins to think differently about crime. Cullen and Agnew (2011) stated that researchers have begun to think that understanding crime cannot be found in the study of individual criminal traits but in the study of traits of the environment in which a criminal lives and interacts. According to Cullen and Agnew (2011) this led to a question where researchers thought that a possible solution to controlling and explaining crime would be found in changing environments and neighborhoods rather than changing people. According to Cullen and Agnew (2011) social disorganization theory was developed in the mid-1940s by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay while they were researchers studying at the Institute for Social Research in Chicago. Shaw and McKay (1942) based their research on crime in Chicago on Ernest Burgess's work on how urban areas grow through a process of continuous expansion from their inner core to peripheral areas. According to Cullen and Agnew (20011) one of the main topics in the theory of social disorganization is the idea that there are settlement patterns in the development of cities and how these patterns influence the characteristics of neighborhoods and corresponding levels of crime. Shaw and McKay developed a theory based on research on settlement patterns conducted by Ernest Burgess. According to Cullen and Agnew (2011) Ernest Burgess stated… middle of paper… any other city built from the automotive industry and to see if “transition zones” move towards areas where new opportunities arise of work after the loss of the main employer. Works Cited Cullen, T.F., Agnew, R. Criminological Theory: Past to Present. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Introduction, chapters III, 7, 8) Feldmeyer, B. Seminar in Criminology. Lecture notes from 02/26/2014. Park, Ezra, R., Burgess, E. W., & McKenzie, R. D. (1967). The city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Pp.105-110) Sampson, R., & Groves, W. (1989). Community structure and crime: Testing social disorganization theory. American Journal of Sociology 94: 774-802. Shaw, C. and McKay, H. (1942) “Juvenile delinquency and urban areas”. Pp 98-104 in Criminological Theory: From Past to Present, edited by Cullen, T.F., Agnew, R. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.