Forms of Urban Planning for Security

The main rationale behind the urban planning for security is that of the controlling of space. This can be achieved in different ways.

The first is not to offer any possibility of crime occurring by restricting potential criminals' ability to act. Thus, "potential criminals" (i.e. youths or the poor) should be prevented from appropriating space by expelling them from certain spaces. This can be achieved by closing off areas to specific groups (for instance, in France, municipalities sometimes forbid the presence of beggars in town centres or around tourist sites or do not allow groups of youths to gather in stairwells), or, more subtly, by designing places in such a way that they are not suited for lingering. Only those who have no work to go to and time to waste "hang out" in places that are not specifically designed for leisure. The idea is to make these spaces unattractive for to lingerers without using openly repugnant techniques. It is even better if, in the eyes of the public, the new design adds aesthetic value.

Deliberations on security are generally not apparent when:

• broad steps leading up to public buildings are narrowed and replaced with rocks, artificial streams or plants for, what seem to be, aesthetic reasons;
• or when a low wall is designed in a bevel shape;
• or when benches are replaced with new ones with a nice-looking modern wave design that deters anyone from taking a nap or simply lying down on it.

The second way this approach makes it possible to secure the urban space is by allowing better surveillance and facilitating interventions by the security forces.

Again, this is done by planning and design measures that are presented in such a way that the population view them positively, by talking about the openness, the opening-up or the accessibility of urban space:

• Areas with lots of narrow streets are rebuilt with larger ones.
• In housing projects where buildings enclose a central area, some buildings are pulled down "to let light in", "to allow more space", but never to "allow greater surveillance".
• When a large road is built in a residential area or through a housing project, it is said to facilitate public access, not the arrival of police patrols.
• These measures are often combined with the installation of cameras in those areas that do have to remain enclosed, such as parking lots or lifts.

They contribute to make what some security specialists call a surveyed space, which is a space in which the greatest possible number of points is visible to the security forces (Garnier 2003).

Despite their current success among public authorities, these trends have a serious flaw. They presume that space and spatial forms directly influence social behaviour. They tend to overlook the fact that the current "insecure" spaces are the result of specific social interactions embedded in a distinct social order.
Interventions that relate only to the physical arrangement and appearance without taking into account the social order and its influence on questions of law and order will therefore not be effective in the long run.