Book Review The Safe City. Safety and Urban Development in European Cities

In urban development of today safety has become one of the most important issues. Not only do urban citizens fear criminals and “thugs ” on the streets, but also terrorist attacks and natural disasters. Therefore it is indeed a vital issue to go behind the superficial analysis in the media to find out more about peoples ’ actual fear and its relation to actual risks. As the authors of The Safe City claim, perceived fear influences urban life and economy to a large extent today. Fear and safety do have an impact on urban development. But being such an important topic put high on the politician’s agenda, applied research around it still appears to be mostly apolitical and the analysis is kept at a very instrumental level. I am afraid this book does not prove to be otherwise. The Safe City is a collection and comparison of case studies from 11 European cities. Initiated by the mayor of Rotterdam, these cities were invited to share their experiences within the existing European URBACT SecurCity network. The network of SecurCity has since 2004 been working for “improvement and effectiveness of policies and actions to combat (perceived) insecurity in the participant cities”. In each city presented in this anthology similar research has been conducted through a model called SAP; per