SAFETY AND DANGER IN URBAN DESIGN

I have been asked to speak about the relations of safety and danger to urban design. Yet I am not a criminologist, nor a sociologist, and I do not wish to claim expertise in those domains. Whatever I might be able to add to this discussion comes from a design perspective û from trying to understand the broader relations of urban design to social behaviour. While street-crime is one variety of such behaviour in public space, my interest is in how urban design might contribute to the full gamut of urban experience. I begin from the view that the urban public realm needs to be at once safe, accessible, vital, creative and democratic. All of these are necessary, and none are sufficient. In the time I have here today I will briefly explore the relations between urban form and urban safety. I will then open up some questions about how dominant forms of urban development are transforming this relationship. Determinism It is now widely accepted that there is a strong relationship between the design of urban space and all forms of public behaviour, crime and violence among them. However, there is rather less agreement about the nature of this relationship û the degree to which urban form 'determines ' behaviour. In design practice, 'determinism ' has become a dirty word. The ide