Security planning: models, limits and new research perspectives

Abstract

Planning and urban studies care for the protection of public spaces, as regards crime prevention within spaces (aggressions, burglaries, robberies, etc.) and insecurity perception, since last 1960s when a research stream started and has been progressively consolidating, producing theories, methodologies, experimentations and regulations, above all within the United States context and spreading also in Europe during last decades. Some models have been derived, to be defined as security models, but presenting some applicative and also theoretical limits, and above all not contributing to recovery the real sense of urban life, historically characterized by the multiplicity of occasions, opportunities, exchanges, unforeseen events and also “risks”. Starting from this observation, possible research perspectives take shape, aiming at safety as more general “wellness” of the contemporary city user.