A study of urban neighbourhood open spaces and their propensity to encourage crime with reference to Kotahena.

Abstract

As a country which is on its developing process, it is not enough to play their role as they were programmed. People should have better opportunities and time to deploy their ideas for a better tomorrow. Sri Lankan city spaces, which had already been planned, face many difficulties because of haphazard development and Urban sprawl effect. The lack of understanding of the urban context has caused numerous issues, with crime being one of them. There are various key factors which identify society and crimes, some of which allow understanding of the nature of spaces in principles. The method applied in this research is based on three steps. The UCL DepthmapX is used to simulate the integration of the spaces in a selected area of study, followed by CPTEDP (crime prevention through environment design principles) and urban design principles being applied in these specific spaces where the simulation was conducted. Finally, a correlation was established with daily crime patterns and the above qualitative and quantitative analysis of the spaces. The final results indicated correlation between environment and crime. The pedestrian traffic/movement and social network have a direct connection with crime pattern. In this case only robberies, devastations and housebreaks are considered. Kotahena was selected as the case study; which almost has the same social characteristics within its urban space. The objective of the research is to find out how the city space and its neighbourhoods’ respond to crime incidents. Landscape characters have been chosen to identify the change of the crime patterns with the cityscape. It is expected to come up with recommendations to apply crime prevention principles and urban design principles. The integration patterns of city are aligned with crime events and the landscape attributes. The cognitive movement can be understood by the software and a crime pattern can be formed. The inadequate attribute of space, identified by CPTED principles can be formed to reduce identified crime incidents through designing and a proper planning solution.