Culture aspects

Culture aspects

Culture aspects in urban planning have been classically addressed in terms of urban arts and city planning. Cultural resources have become recognized as an important component of urban space.

Growing features are cultural policy and practice. Relevant issues are: societal needs, socioeconomic issues, the natural/structural/infrastructural environment, and social aspects of urban planning.

Commonly, societal needs are addressed in urban planning (such as need for parks, green and recreation area, need for public transport improvement, need for bike routes, need for social gathering places and culture resources, special needs of vulnerable groups (such as children, disabled, elderly etc.), and many of them have security/safety relevance. Examples are:

1. Lighting of urban spaces, bus stops, video installation etc., which helps reducing crime rates, robberies, sexual harassment etc.
2. According standardized constructions to avoid chemical leaching from/around industrial sites and to avoid substance harassment and environmental pollution;
3. According physical protection of urban rivers and channels (also sewage) to avoid flooding /overflowing;
4. Child friendly construction norms and standards for schools and preschools to avoid injuries (e.g. safety areas near streets);
5. Additional parking houses/garages to provide for increased drivers’ needs – improvement of ventilation systems to control exhaust fumes and avoid health problems;
6. Counter-terrorism design measures to avoid terrorist attempts;

etc.

Security issues, that could arise, if not addressed, are:

• Raising crime incidents
• Increasing environmental problems
• Increasing health problems
• Increasing accident rates
• Increasing flooding

Concept of culture

1. Technically, culture is linked to cognition and refers to people’s assumptions about the world.
2. The classical policy concept of political culture centers on norms and values guiding citizens’ assessments, expectations and behaviour consequences.
3. Culture is regarded as a threshold criteria for defining when a society will accept a problem (such as a security threat/challenge) to be solved. Social sciences and humanities
4. Cultures prescribe members' relations with the community and how these members orient their actions
5. The cognitive dimension of culture is especially important to address aspects such as perception of vulnerability and building of cognitive foundations for citizen resilience.

Security related aspects and benefits

• Culture aspects are an important ingredient of citizen resilience that urban planning can support and that, in turn, urban planning can take advantage of to tackle security aspects.
• Existing public security cultures influence the criteria for societal acceptance of urban security planning decisions and results, and for the addressing of security aspects in that context.
• Urban structure and cultural artifacts resulting from urban planning influence a society and its culture. That may involve and challenge ethics aspects.
• The concept of (security) culture is important for effective security related urban planning.
• Activating civic culture can also be a method to use in urban planning in order to efficiently address security aspects.

=Approaches how to address it

• Comply with all the existing planning/construction/safety norms and standards;
• Follow public/governmental programmes and initiatives (e.g. crime prevention programs, counter-terrorism programs, environmental and climate protection programs);
• Consider upcoming societal needs, societal/demographic changes;
• Consider public views (e.g. from surveys, studies and citizen participation etc.) in planning ideas and processes.

The following approaches/schools of thought are of particular relevance for covering culture-related security aspects in urban planning:

• Cultural criminology
• Community safety approach;
• Security culture
• Perception of (in)security;
• Environmental design (behaviour setting);
• Societal norms and values.

Practical checklists to consider culture aspects in urban planning

• Checklists for dimension consideration
• Stakeholder-rated methods
• Aspect determination methods for urban planners

Take home messages for addressing culture aspects of security in urban planning

Get to know culture: Familiarize with public security cultures, which influence citizens’ acceptance of urban security planning decisions and built environment resulting from those planning decisions. Mind cultural meaning: Consider the influence of culture on urban structure, and of urban planning on culture, bearing in mind that culture aspects go beyond preserving historic artefacts and protecting the traditional image of the city. Culture is linked to dynamic societal processes, and it among other things co-determines the meaning that citizens ascribe to built urban structure. These processes cannot be planned and meaning cannot just be socially transmitted by design of urban space. Analyze risks comprehensively: Use the culture of risk of a society in order to determine security aspects in urban planning, and needs to protect, that may be overlooked by technological approaches to risk analysis. Integrate cultural components of resilience: Consider in resilience-enhancing planning that resilience, and the vulnerabilities towards which it is directed, include elements of public culture – such as citizens morale and societal preparedness, social networks, etc. Planning should work with – not over or against – those aspects. Resilience as capability to learn and adapt to changing environment essentially involves societal characteristics. This involves styles of how citizens perceive urban environment and security (gaps), as well as their expectations how this should be addressed by authorities.

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