Sense of safety and planning and design policies

Abstract

Planning, development and design policies influence sense of safety of people to use the City centre or Central Business District (CBD) and therefore city centres can become active and vibrant during the day and night. This paper reviews past and present planning policies relevant for feeling of personal safety in the context of housing, retail, amenities, street infrastructure, building design and transportation aspects. The past development trends show that insignificant attention has been paid to people's sense of safety when using public spaces, particularly at night, a factor identified important in creating attractive city centres since 1960s. Local plans primarily refer to safety in relation to roads, accessibility and workability. Local policies also show the dominance of CCTV since the 1990s has become ubiquitous, but changes to sense of safety in urban spaces now may actually be a better reflection of planning and design decisions made over the past 20 years.