The root of the problem: The bad, the good and the ugly urban spaces and their impacts on the human behaviors (original) (raw)
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THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM: THE BAD, THE UGLY AND THE GOOD URBAN SPACES
City & Security, 2013
Civilisation is the advanced social development that is believed to owe its origin to human interaction in cities. The first decade of this Century was marked by deep economic and political changes provoking some irreversible transformations in the socio cultural organization and the physical structure. These changes can be explained by the failure of the economic models on which were worked out the different policies of development and principles of growth and management. The city might be seen as a coin with double faces: it is a space of opportunities, culture and challenges; it is also a space of the anonymous and precarious life. So cities do not always have a civilising effect. In the 1960's, there was an unprecedented rural immigration towards the cities located particularly in the North of the country. These cities went through very deep socio-physical metamorphoses. This paper examines these metamorphoses and the occurrence of unsecure spaces in terms of street robbery and residential burglary, perception of security and streets segments attributes such as connectivity, length, street lighting, appearance, escape routes, residences visual and physical barriers, visual and physical connections between residences and the public open space, land use and type of housing unit.
Civilisation is the advanced social development that is believed to owe its origin to human interaction in cities. The first decade of this Century was marked by deep economic and political changes provoking some irreversible transformations in the socio cultural organization and the physical structure. These changes can be explained by the failure of the economic models on which were worked out the different policies of development and principles of growth and management. The city might be seen as a coin with double faces: it is a space of opportunities, culture and challenges; it is also a space of the anonymous and precarious life. So cities do not always have a civilising effect. In the 1960's, there was an unprecedented rural immigration towards the cities located particularly in the North of the country. These cities went through very deep socio-physical metamorphoses. This paper examines these metamorphoses and the occurrence of unsecure spaces in terms of street robbery and residential burglary, perception of security and streets segments attributes such as connectivity, length, street lighting, appearance, escape routes, residences visual and physical barriers, visual and physical connections between residences and the public open space, land use and type of housing unit.
The researchers of the Institute of Criminology from Mantua (FDE) invite all the operators of social security, public administrators, academics and not least “citizens” to discuss about a problem became important in our society: the insecurity. When it becomes pathological, INNES proposes to fight against this situation investing on the strengthening of social bonds. The invitation is to discuss and compare about it during the conference days of November 2015 (26-28) in Mantua, city that hold the European program INNES about the strengthening of social relationships that is the soul of this very conference. A model of society, more competitive and less supportive, originates fears that, being many and diversified, are difficult to isolate, conducing to the disappearance of that social connective tissue that for centuries granted a network of collective protection. Privatizing fear and insecurities means live them alone and no as a community, so bear alone these serious burden. As defence to fears, human being -often- adopts autonomously strategies of closure and protectionism that, take to limits not so extreme, they leave us even more alone and suspicious towards the “others than oneself”. More alone, so more scared. Since 2013, a group of researchers from Mantua related to the Institute of Criminology of Mantua (FDE), together with researchers of the Foundation Politechnic of Milan, is involved in the study of insecurity of citizens in the small residence areas, thinking about which are the potential incentives for inverting the deviation of individualism and for arriving to promote the practice of construction and strengthening of neighbourhood bonds among citizens, for being less alone. The interest is that of conducing the citizen to reconsider his/her city as a place to rediscover, revitalise and at the same time a place in which we can test a new, modern, utilization of the urban space, that for definition is a public place naturally created for the socialisation, meeting among people and for this must be shared, safe and available to everybody. Many are the neighbourhoods that have been (and they are even now) theatre of the first realization of this programme and of the concept of “social cobweb” (Sandri et. Al., 2014). The development of solidarity, social cohesion and the possibility to take their urban space back are some of the key instruments that the community can use in order to fight against fear and insecurity of citizens.
Used inevitable every single day, by all people, despite the age, social class, economic status of ethnicity, public space represents a great deal in our wellbeing and in the image of the city. In particularly, residential public spaces do have a high economic, social and emotional importance. The present empirical study aims to highlight the first step in a complex process of planning. The observation of the most important issues of the residential public spaces in Bucharest represents the foundation of future researches themes like urban planning, social wellbeing and segregation, urban image and urban identity. Considering the recent history of the city the main focus is set on the elementary challenge to adapt the democratic modern life style and expectation to a predominantly socialist urban structure.
Re-Imagining the City: Municipality and Urbanity Today from a Sociological Perspective
vice or recreational spaces, communication routes, urban equipment, etc.). Th erefore the city comprises not only a fabric, but also a laboratory of social realms with their structural-material consequences of varying scale, range, and signifi cance. Such a diverse array of aff airs and problems makes some concessions as to the form of their analysis and description. Th is book is not a mere collection of academic texts. Th e reader will fi nd here regular scientifi c articles of theoretical, empirical or methodological nature along with a number of texts 30 Małgorzata Dymnicka References
Curbanismo. La curva del crimine nell'urbanesimo
The volume raises important questions about deviance in cities by highlighting a series of international experiences determined by both public agendas and planners. Starting from a macroeconomic point of view, it comes down to the micro-affidavit of residents especially when it comes to an unexpected explosion of violence, or when pockets of poverty and exclusion exceed the limit of the urban survival. Crime prevention through environmental planning (CPTED) and its precursors broaden the scope of observation in the city, so that inclusion themes alternate with restrictive policing measures; protected buildings are challenged with the inaccessible fortresses (so-called "closed" communities). Le volume soulève des questions importantes sur la déviance dans les villes en mettant en évidence une série d'expériences internationales déterminées à la fois par les agendas publics et les planificateurs. Après avoir aborder le point de vue macroéconomique, il descends au micro-affidavit des résidents, surtout lorsqu'il s'agit de faire face à une explosion de violence inattendue ou lorsque des poches de pauvreté et d'exclusion dépassent la limite de la survie du milieu urbain. La prévention de la criminalité par la planification environnementale et ses précurseurs élargissent la portée de l'observation dans la ville, de sorte que les thèmes d'inclusion s’alternent avec des mesures policières restrictives; les bâtiments protégés sont mise en question surtout avec le cas des forteresses inaccessibles (les communautés dites «fermées»).
Practice and processes in the production of urban space: decentering perspectives
Estudos de Sociologia, 2022
This essay, which opens the dossier "Practices and Processes of Urban Space Production: Decentering Perspectives," takes this tension as a premise. The classical perspective that understood and analyzed the city as the ground for civil progress, the development of human potentialities—or as a stage for the reverberation of "modern" mistrusts and fears—overlooked a series of urban life experiences that have accumulated and evolved on the outskirts of global capitalism. On the one hand, these experiences are marked by the colonial past—hence by the effects of transatlantic slave trade, massive displacement of people, slavery, genocide, and racism—that historically interweaves "North-South" and "South-South". On the other, by the persistent legacies of this past, which obstruct the resolution of contemporary issues, such as segregation, inequalities, lack of infrastructure, problems in urban-environmental regulation and management, among others.
URBAN SAFETY AND PUBLIC SPACE: THE CASE OF NAPLES
The analysis of city from a perspective of safety is a significant characteristic of urban planning culture in contemporary society. Urban safety is becoming a managerial concept that has rooted itself into how private companies and public local governments operate. Urban landscape is impoverished leading into a defensive shell: the crescent number of gated communities; new forms of privatization of traditional public space such as malls but also airport stations, museums, galleries (quite similar) with shops, police surveillance and cctv systems; large public spaces designed without attention in new developments which rapidly decline are only some examples. Nowadays, a fracture between user and public space is amplifying caused by new feelings of unsafety towards crime, physical degrade, migrant populations and consequently new barriers (mental and physical) are rising in new urban landscape. In the paper we' ll present a methodology applied to analyse contemporary urban landscape giving particular attention to safety and planning design in two experiences from city of Naples.
This paper points out the relationship between urban form characteristics and social behaviour in public open space of public housing neighbourhoods in the context of safety and security issues. It is based on theoretical assumptions according to which the organization of space and its physical characteristics influence the relationship between people, their activities and ideas. The spatial configuration of neighbourhoods and their public space can affect the individual and collective patterns of their daily use which support local community identity and its integration into the global system of a city. At the same time it can be a generator of urban segregation and experience of insecurity. The paper is a brief overview of several urban theories as critical rethinking of spatial and social basis of the concept of the neighbourhood unit. These theories are dealing with the relations between urban form and forms of sociability, at the same time concerning the safety issue of neighbourhoods and public spaces. Analytical concepts of these theories of urban heterogeneity and configurational characteristics of the space are often used in contemporary urban studies as a tool to measure the spatial performativity in the context of safety problems. Patterns of human co-presence, spontaneous surveillance and mixing of residents and strangers, who can be supported and generated through the configuration of urban structures, are considered as the mediators of experience of safety. Pointing out the safety issue in these theories, the argument of this paper is that urban form can be considered as a useful instrument for achievement of individual and community safety.
Urban space as an image of the socio-economic context in contemporary cities
Facta universitatis - series: Architecture and Civil Engineering, 2016
From the very beginning of urban settlements, cities have had a very clear expression, because urban elements bear with them the symbolism and messages tied to relevant points in history, changes in function, characters etc. These messages, carried through a range of urban elements, have been changing in respect to lifestyles, which, ever since the rise of capitalism, predominantly meant with respect to economic conditions. Such a free-market impact has become particularly evident in the light of contemporary totalitarian capitalism that has equated urban space with commercial and exhibition space, thus moulding it into an urban market. This paper is intended as a critical review dealing with the analysis of urban spaces in respect to urban image creation, all in relation to relevant socio-economic influences and conditionalities. It also considers new symbolic meanings to the existing urban form, which affect urban life and its inhabitants.