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I compared nocturnal rodent distributions in housing developments and in undeveloped control sites in Tucson, Arizona, during October 1994. I trapped rodents in 2 low density (0.5 houses/ha) developments, 2 high density (7.5 houses/ha) developments, and in 4 control blocks of adjacent native habitat. Trap lines consisted of 50 snap traps spaced at 2 traps every 10 meters. I compared the abundance of each species, species richness, and total abundance between the treatments and controls in a contingency table using a 2-tailed Fisher's exact test. Post-hoc tests were used where the null of no difference among sites was rejected. One-hundred-forty-four individuals representing 5 species of nocturnal rodents were encountered in 1200 trap nights. Of 4 native rodent species, none were captured in high housing density sites. House mice (Mus musculus) were captured only in high housing density sites. Species richness did not differ between any of the four sites. However, total abundance was lower in both the high housing density and the high density control than in low density sites. Low density housing must be included in the developing matrix if the full compliment of nocturnal rodents is to be retained in Tucson. Intensive studies involving a broader range of development types are planned.