Sociospatial perspective

Sociospatial perspective

The sociospatial perspective assumes that “social space operates as both a product and a producer of changes in the metropolitan environment”.

In the sociospatial perspective, built environment is intrinsically meaningful, it has its particular “semiotics” that tell about policy, culture, society, economy, etc., and also about security.

Interaction of urban structures and society

On the bottom line, urban structure has an impact on social processes, and this needs to be addressed in strategic urban planning. The school of “New Urbanism” has referred to this as the “sociospatial perspective”. This means that urban space and society interact.

Security related aspects

• Design features of urban infrastructure influence citizens’ perception of the risk, that this infrastructure is at, as well as the general perception of criticality of that infrastructure.
• Critics: 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. The perception of (in)security in cities rather depends "[...] upon the substantial amount and constant flow of information that urban residents receive from many sources”.
• Many examples of community-enhancing constructions represent an “elitism of architectural choice” that may in the end increase societal gaps and perceptions of fear, as well as actual insecurity.

Related subjects

• Cultural criminology
• Environmental design
• Environmental psychology
• New Urbanism
• Designing out
• Designin in
• Resilience, societal resilience;
• Perception of (in)security and of the criticality of infrastructure.

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