A Working Guide For Planning And Designing Safer Urban Environments

This guide is directed to Toronto-area planning and design professionals to help them to integrate personal safety into their designs for public spaces. The guide describes the process for planning and design of safer urban environments; factors that enhance safety and security in public spaces; and ways to improve or avoid problematic places in transportation, neighbourhoods and downtown, and in industrial areas, alleys and laneways and washrooms.

Ordinary people are natural experts on safety in their own communities. The key to creating a city where people feel safe is to give citizens input into developing safer environments for themselves. This book offers a set of easy-to-follow guidelines - well illustrated with photos - that can be used to improve urban safety. It also includes success stories on the ways that ordinary people, working in partnership with local governments and agencies have taken the initiative to fight back against violent crime in public housing, transit, parks and open places, underground parking, schools, houses and neighbourhoods.

It is generally accepted that the physical environment in towns and cities can affect patterns of crime and antisocial behaviour. This report presents the proceedings of an international conference, held in Poland in October 2000, as part of the work programme of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (CLRAE) of the Council of Europe to develop and promote policies for the reduction of urban crime in its 41 member countries. The conference discussions focused on four key themes: housing and crime; open spaces, street planning and design; urban transport planning to reduce crime; and the relationship between the siting and design of sporting facilities and crime.

The NACTO Urban Street Design Guide shows how streets of every size can be reimagined and reoriented to prioritize safe driving and transit, biking, walking, and public activity. Unlike older, more conservative engineering manuals, this design guide emphasizes the core principle that urban streets are public places and have a larger role to play in communities than solely being conduits for traffic. The well-illustrated guide offers blueprints of street design from multiple perspectives, from the bird’s eye view to granular details. Case studies from around the country clearly show how to implement best practices, as well as provide guidance for customizing design applications to a city’s unique needs. Urban Street Design Guide outlines five goals and tenets of world-class street design: • Streets are public spaces. Streets play a much larger role in the public life of cities and communities than just thoroughfares for traffic. • Great streets are great for business. Well-designed streets generate higher revenues for businesses and higher values for homeowners. • Design for safety. Traffic engineers can and should design streets where people walking, parking, shopping, bicycling, working, and driving can cross paths safely. • Streets can be changed. Transportation engineers can work flexibly within the building envelope of a street. Many city streets were created in a different era and need to be reconfigured to meet new needs. • Act now! Implement projects quickly using temporary materials to help inform public decision making. Elaborating on these fundamental principles, the guide offers substantive direction for cities seeking to improve street design to create more inclusive, multi-modal urban environments. It is an exceptional resource for redesigning streets to serve the needs of 21st century cities, whose residents and visitors demand a variety of transportation options, safer streets, and vibrant community life.

This trailblazing book outlines an interdisciplinary "process model" for urban design that has been developed and tested over time. Its goal is not to explain how to design a specific city precinct or public space, but to describe useful steps to approach the transformation of urban spaces. Urban Ecological Design illustrates the different stages in which the process is organized, using theories, techniques, images, and case studies. In essence, it presents a "how-to" method to transform the urban landscape that is thoroughly informed by theory and practice. The authors note that urban design is viewed as an interface between different disciplines. They describe the field as "peacefully overrun, invaded, and occupied" by city planners, architects, engineers, and landscape architects (with developers and politicians frequently joining in). They suggest that environmental concerns demand the consideration of ecology and sustainability issues in urban design. It is, after all, the urban designer who helps to orchestrate human relationships with other living organisms in the built environment. The overall objective of the book is to reinforce the role of the urban designer as an honest broker and promoter of design processes and as an active agent of social creativity in the production of the public realm.

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, 3e is a vital book for anyone involved in architectural design, space management, and urban planning. The concepts presented in this book explain the link between design and human behavior. Understanding this link can enable a planner to use natural environmental factors to minimize loss and crime and to maximize productivity. This practical guide addresses several environmental settings, including major event facilities, small retail establishments, downtown streets, residential areas, and playgrounds. A one-stop resource with explanations of criminal behavior and the historical aspects of design, it teaches both the novice and the expert in crime prevention how to use the environment to affect human behavior in a positive manner. Fully updated with substantial new material in each chapter Useful illustrations describe the design and layout concepts in an easy to understand manner Written by a well-qualified author in the field of crime prevention

This key book is a revised and updated discussion of the fundamental conflict in the perception of nature, and an expression of the essential need for an environmental view when approaching urban design. Whilst retaining the existing structure, each of the chapters has been revised to take into account recent theoretical and practical developments. A completely new concluding chapter has been added which draws together the themes of the volume and links these to broader landscape issues such as greenway systems, landscape ecology and green infrastructure.

Leslie Kern wants your city to be feminist. An intrepid feminist geographer, Kern combines memoir, theory, pop culture, and geography in this collection of essays that invites the reader to think differently about city spaces and city life. From the geography of rape culture to the politics of snow removal, the city is an ongoing site of gendered struggle. Yet the city is perhaps also our best hope for shaping new social relations based around care and justice. Taking on fear, motherhood, friendship, activism, and the joys and perils of being alone, Kern maps the city from new vantage points, laying out a feminist intersectional approach to urban histories and pathways towards different urban futures.