Sociospatial perspective

The sociospatial perspective assumes that “social space operates as both a product and a producer of changes in the metropolitan environment” <reference>INSERT(Gottdiener/Hutchinson 2011: 394; see also 20. In theoretical terms, this would be a “structuralist” approach following Flanagan’s (2010) classification.): “Once spatial patterns are altered in one region of the metropolis, this change affects all other parts not just of the metropolis, but also of other cities in the regional as well as national and even international hierarchy of urban regions.” <reference>INSERT(Ibid.) In the sociospatial perspective, built environment is intrinsically meaningful, it has its particular “semiotics” <reference>INSERT(Gottdiener/Hutchinson 2011: 394.) that tell about policy, culture, society, economy, etc., and also about security. For example, design features of urban infrastructure influence citizens’ perception of the risk that this infrastructure is at or that it is assumed to mitigate or prevent, as well as the general [of the criticality] of that infrastructure. Although urbanization studies strongly argue that differences between actual and perceived security are not influenced by the design of built environment but that they mainly are mass media constructs, they also assume that “the perception of insecurity in cities depends largely upon the substantial amount and constant flow of information that urban residents receive from many sources” <reference>INSERT(UN-HABITAT 2007: XX. ), and this can be assumed to include the semiotics of built environment. Many examples of community-enhancing constructions represent an “elitism of architectural choice” <reference>INSERT(Gottdiener/Hutchinson 2011: 331.) that may in the end increase societal gaps and perceptions of fear, as well as actual insecurity. Cultural criminology supports this argument from the point of view of a critique of the approach of “designing-out” (crime and terrorism) through environmental design <reference>INSERT(E.g. Geason/Wilson 1989.), as for example in the case of commercial malls based on architectures “to separate out different ‘types’ of people” and related risks <reference>INSERT(Garland 2001: 162.).