CHAPTER 3: PLANNING OF PUBLIC AND LIVELY PLACES
3.3 Place-making approaches
3.3.3 Impact of place-making theories on rural safety and security
This section focuses on theories and approaches of place-making with specific reference to rural communities and the impact on the safety and security (social) challenge present in rural communities.
The concept regarding ‗safety and security‘ will first be clarified within the rural context.
When referring to safety, is does not merely include the remit of a specialist service but rather refers to the object of a partnership with public safety rather regarded as public order and user-friendliness (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:19). Therefore public safety should be seen as a means or instrument rather than an end in itself. This ‗instrument‘ of public safety should therefore be used and applied in all areas of developmental approaches or projects regarding rural place-making and lively place planning i.e. the functional, commercial, economic, aesthetic, town planning, amenities, architecture and other aspects of the projects (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:19).
In terms of security, the most predominant issue or derivation is that of human insecurity (Loudier &
Dubois, 2001:1).This includes vulnerable situations like burglaries, physical attacks, snatches and
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grabs, etc. as well as acts of incivility or aggression against public or official institutions (Loudier &
Dubois, 2001:2).
The reason for these feelings of insecurity can be rooted in poor planning and vulnerable and unsafe open spaces i.e. the functional approach to space and the planning thereof with a drastic decline in the traditional neighbourhood (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:2); as well as street and public transport as a special source of insecurity (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:3). Other aspects promoting insecurity include environmental design failures or lacks regarding the provision of obvious amenities like lighting; as well as the presence of confined passages; damaged spaces; dirtiness; dead ends creating a mouse trap effect; overly-vast deserted open spaces exposing people to danger where no possible assistance seems to be present; and the creation of a malaise by establishing places with no precise vocation (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:4).
In order to implement successful place-making approaches (based on the theories discussed in the previous section); its mission should therefore be the creative transformation of the places where people live in a ‗chaordic‘ (chaotically ordered) manner, where the prevention of the accumulation of power and resources in any one part of the organization occurs while maintaining a remarkable level of coherence and creativity in order to have a positive development effect and enhance the heart of villages (i.e. public places, plazas, lively streets, friendly exchange between passers-by, shared sense of ownership, food, kids, laughter, music, art, culture, etc) (Cowan et al., 2006:9).
Regeneration strategies (refer to table 11) or policing approaches (as mentioned in the section regarding place-making approaches), intended to ‗design out crime‘ can end up ‗designing out‘ people, creating a negative effect on community development and social cohesion within rural communities.
Approaches that strip public spaces of all features that are vulnerable to vandalism or misuse actively discourage local distinctiveness and public amenity (Worpole & Knox, 2007:3) – therefore place-making should be implemented in such a manner that it reduces vulnerability but does not strip a space of its distinctiveness i.e. the positive effect of creative place-making processes by means of encouraging localpeople to play a role in the evolution of activities and to help shape these spaces into the places theywant (Worpole & Knox, 2007:8).
Strategies focused and designed to prevent this feeling of insecurity through planning involve several different types of initiatives, in particular the implementation of municipal schemes (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:25). When leveling place-making on municipal grounds, the public and their direct inputs and needs are more easily adhered to with the positive effect of the application of integrated town planning principles designed to foster security (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:25). The positive effect of this theory is
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that of Toronto‘s municipal urban safety policy, incorporating town planning through the design and/or construction of amenities like a street vendor, news stands with users sitting down on benches (Loudier
& Dubois, 2001:25). The effect of this place-making approach can have significant benefits for and positive effects on safety and security, particularly in rural areas by means of constant human presence and therefore unintentional (yet effective) surveillance of the operators of these amenities.
When, for example, implementing a place-making system (like that of Tempe, USA, implementing a safety policy within planning activities based on CPTED, cross reference to SAPS (2011:39)) that is developed to combine a municipal decree and policy directives (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:26), the following attributes and corresponding effects on safety and security can be expected:
Table 15: Place-making effects on safety and security PLACE-MAKING INITIATIVE EFFECT ON SAFETY AND
SECURITY
CONCURRENCE WITH PREVIOUSLY DISCUSSED
APPROACHES AND/OR POLICIES
Lighting Enhances sight and decreases vulnerability at night.
Addressing previous issues regarding unsafe environments due to
neglected design and maintenance leading to dark and crime-driven environments. South Africa‘s community crime prevention
approach also decreases vulnerability at night through the means of neighbourhood watches and other on- site patrol groups.
Landscaping (including planting)
Ensuring neat and trimmed plants prevents the possibility for people to hide there.
Coincides with the regeneration approach in redesigning the environmental layout and managing and maintaining vegetation.
Signage &
addressing
Better signing and marking of addresses and street names ensure faster correspondence by police and other neighbourhood safety units.
Integration of South Africa‘s community crime prevention groups and transport system upgrades contributing to faster responses.
Internal areas of buildings
Creates a place linking all departments or areas of the building in order to reduce the presence of eerie and empty hallways and passages.
Includes aspects of the City Repair Project, regeneration initiatives and therefore integrated planning in order to convert eerie spaces into places (City repair project) by the community (projects for public spaces) and including crime prevention initiatives (community crime prevention and simultaneous police-enhancement).
Access control walls Ensures identification and signing Not directly addressed in above-
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identifying perpetrators.
mentioned approaches, indirectly a means of crime prevention.
Site plan for residential
complexes featuring more than one structure
Provides clarity on each person‘s location within the complex.
Regeneration especially in terms of redelineating private and public space.
Door transparency (glazed internal doors in commercial establishments)
Improves visibility and possible pre-identification of suspicious actions or persons.
Promotes visibility and natural surveillance without any policy or specific planning approach (refer to Table 10 for a visual representation or example).
Car parks Location of planned car parks within the vision of the building (with corresponding door
transparency) provides better and more visual clarity on the cars.
Same as mentioned above.
Source: Own creation based on Loudier and Dubois (2001:27).
Even though the planning and simultaneous inclusion of place-making elements on public spaces can play a preventative role and contribute to safety by complementing other safety prevention systems (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:4) and improving spatial ambience (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:5) the reduction of the sense of insecurity alone cannot be effective for all types of delinquency (e.g. Murder and other criminal offences) (Loudier & Dubois, 2001:5).
These require place-making approaches (as included in previous discussions) to promote the creation of strong alliances with other communities and/or adjacent towns or cities. This improves social aspects and potential, especially that of intercommunity safety and security (Philips, 2010:17). This place- making initiative includes positive effects like the sharing of ideas and resources as well as the sharing of experiences of innovation regarding crime and violence prevention (Philips, 2010:18).
Because of the implementation of these broader combat measures (like alliances) crime and related issues such as inequality, marginalization and poverty will be halted. One aspect of these alliances‘
initiatives includes random activities (like the promotion of sports activities within communities) as a means of preventing urban violence (Philips, 2010:20) - security is only partly achieved by putting more police officers out on the streets, therefore previously stated ‗creative‘ place-making approaches (as the above-mentioned sporting activity initiative) should be applied.
By means of applying place making processes and/or lessons, small actions could contribute to a huge extent to the addressing of rural safety and security as social challenge. These actions (for example)
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also include activities like locating bus stops on a main street near shops and human activity rather than on a deserted road which avoids leaving people vulnerable while they are waiting for public transport. The presence of small businesses and street vendors in neighbourhoods (as mentioned in the example of Toronto‘s municipal urban safety policy), act as powerful deterrents to crime (Cowan et al., 2006:20).
Improving citizens‘ visual literacy will make it easier for policymakers to design these spaces. This will then contribute to the architecture, and by improving or addressing architectural techniques or layouts, certain aspects of safety and security can also be improved. This creates the positive effect of ―natural surveillance‖ i.e. creating sight lines down corridors and making sure that the windows of neighbours‘
homes overlook open areas (Philips, 2010:20). This visible presence on hand contributes and promotes the safety and security of a place (PPS, 2008:30).
In doing so it is also important to note (as mentioned in Chapter 2) that these spaces are planned for people and people have different needs and/or preferences. It is therefore important that these policies regarding lively place planning and place-making of policymakers need to adapt to these individual conditions, with architects and planners developing sets of qualities that shape the direction of designs and that tap into citizens‘ feelings about the spaces in which they feel most comfortable, otherwise a mere mass production with people feeling the loss of identity (Cowan et al., 2006:21).
Overall reduction of rural poverty and inequality will, as a matter of course, result in a quality of life that will reduce numerous safety challenges which rural dwellers face at the moment. For example, if girls and women in rural areas had running water in their homes, they would not be vulnerable to the victimisation which they experience while travelling to and from rivers and communal water sources (Department of Community Safety and Liaison, 2010:8).