Writing

Cities are one of humankind's greatest achievements. The value of proximity is proven through the ability to exchange ideas, being a center for social and political change, and a place that can support niche goods and services. However, not all cities are created equal. Cities should be safe places to live, but this is not always true. There are two approaches to addressing safety, compositional approaches (addressing socio-demographic reasons for crime) and ecological approaches (importance of physical attributes). This project will explore the latter to hopefully expose the relationship between physical infrastructure and the design of public space, and safety. Attributing physical infrastructure types to more abstract concepts like safety can help planners, architects, and city dwellers better understand what keeps us safe. One goal of the project is to create a toolbox of infrastructure components that architects and planners can refer to improve the safety of cities through good design.