Shaping the City: The Link Between Crime and Urban Planning
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2012-05-03/shaping-city-link-between-crime-and-urban-planning
Guest Host:
Paul Brown
Can good (or bad) design influence crime in a neighborhood? Urban planners have long known that street lighting, pedestrian walkways, cameras and other design features can deter certain crimes. Conversely, many high-crime areas share similar architecture and design traits. Architect and Washington Post columnist Roger Lewis joins us to explore how design can create safe or dangerous spaces.
Guests
Roger Lewis
Architect; Columnist, "Shaping the City," Washington Post; and Professor Emeritus of Architecture, University of Maryland College Park
Comments
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Great topic! Thank you for bring it up. It is however, unfortunate, that a landscape architect/urban planner is not invited to this show and share our experience in creating safe livable communities throughout metro DC area. Please note architects design structures like buildings, it is the landscape archtiects that design the many livably outdoor spaces. Landscape architects are especially well equipped to deal with community outreach and creating concensus.
Could the guest disscuss the Emerald Ash Bore, and its effects on the Ash tree.
The Late Urban Planner Oscar Newman study and wrote about defensible space. Initially he proposed that defendible space makes it easier to monitor/patrol an area and can be quickly protected/secured. However, later he found that like any fortification - the key to the effectiveness of a defensible space is the manpower that secures it. The lack of patrols, police, or community involvement to secure public places - severely reduced the effectiveness of any security features that were designed into an urban site plan. So its as much a sociological issue as well as an economical-political solution -for our society is not ready for the use of automated security enforcement (like armed UAVs or electricify fenses).
Buildings and infrastructure don't make a place safe or not. People do. The urban planning factor isn't as important as the values of the people who live there.