Culture aspects

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Culture aspects

Culture aspects in is a way to::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.

Main recommendations 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.

Security issues that could arise if security culture is not appropriately addressed in urban planning include the following:

  • Raising crime incidents
  • Increasing citizens' perception of inscecurity
  • Increasing gap between felt and factual security
  • Loss of legitimacy of public and planning authorities


Concept of culture

  1. Technically, culture is linked to cognition and refers to people’s assumptions about the world.[1]
  2. The classical policy concept of political culture centers on norms and values guiding citizens’ assessments, expectations and behaviour consequences.[2]
  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.[3]
  4. Cultures prescribe members' relations with the community and how these members orient their actions.[4]
  5. The cognitive dimension of culture is especially important to address aspects such as perception of causes::vulnerability and building of cognitive foundations for citizen causes::resilience.


Security related aspects of culture

  • Culture aspects are an important ingredient of citizen is part of::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 is a way to::civic culture can also be a method to use in urban planning in order to efficiently address security aspects.


Approaches how to address aspects of security culture in urban planning

  • 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 has attribute::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:


Practical checklists to consider culture aspects in urban planning


Footnotes and references

  1. ↑ E.g. R.M. Keesing: Theories of Culture. In: Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 3 (1974), pp. 73-97.
  2. ↑ G.A. Almond/S. Verba: The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton, NJ: University of Princeton Press, 1963.
  3. ↑ A. Schütz: Gesammelte Aufsätze. Bd.3: Studien zur phänomenologischen Philosophie. Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1972, pp. 156-157.
  4. ↑ H.S. Baum: Culture Matters–But It Shouldn’t Matter Too Much. In: M.A. Burayidi (ed.): Urban Planning in a Multicultural Society, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000, pp. 115-136 (p. 115).

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