The purpose of this study was to examine the differences found in areas with high delinquency rates in relation to the ecological structure in Los Angeles County, California. Previous studies suggest that delinquency was the consequence of the availability of low cost housing found in deteriorating residential areas, and that the housing matched the meager resources of successive waves of low income migrants and immigrants. It was hypothesized that current neighborhood crime and delinquency rates have increased as a function of changes in the demographic, subcultural, and socioeconomic factors most directly related to the social processes of the community. Noted in the developmental process of delinquency was an increasing decline in those structural features common to enduring areas. It was also suggested that post-war changes in population movements have had the effect of dispersing delinquency areas outward from the older core of the city without respect to the initiating force of land use change. A summary of the results are included as appendices. (Author/JCD)