Citing British and American crime statistics for comparison, the author notes the disproportionately higher incidence of crime in larger urban areas than in small towns. A newer trend, however, is the high rate of crime, especially juvenile crime, in the new dormitory surburbia that have been rapidly draining more affluent, middle-class Australians away from metropolitan areas. The new spread-cities, consisting of residential housing only, have no recreation or cultural facilities for the young people living here, who turn to crime chiefly out of boredom. The suburbs are also socially segregated, without any communication among different sections of the community. Meanwhile overcrowded inner cities continue to have their traditional crime problems. The solution suggested by this study is to locate future population growth into numerous smaller, compact (as opposed to spread-out) cities with under 250,000 population. Such cities should be served by public transportation systmes and have recreational, community, and social facilities available to all their residents, especially young people.