Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

Introduction
5
measures that can help to alleviate their worst consequences.
Threats to urban safety and security are also popularly
understood by ‘conventional wisdom’ in ways that do not
readily lead to solutions or assignment of responsibility for
them. Upon greater examination, however, these forms of
conventional wisdom do not stand up as accurate descriptions
of the problems at hand. Natural and human-made
disasters are frequently regarded as unpredictable, yet,
closer analysis demonstrates that their probabilities are
within reasonably tight bounds in time and place – for
example, monsoons and hurricanes occur within certain
months in specific regions of the world. As such, they are
amenable to policy and technical responses that can alleviate
their impacts. An analogous approach applies to crime and
violence, which tends to occur in specific sites, either
directed at persons or property, with a set of motivations
that are predictable within individual urban cultures (i.e. to
steal property to buy drugs in some cities or to define gang
territories in others). Crime and violence are not random; as
such, they can be studied in order to address underlying
causal factors, as well as through direct measures to confront
them. For example, some cities are already known as safe,
while others seem to have cultivated ‘cultures of fear’,
frequently with a major role played by the local media. Yet
other cities have become ‘safer’ over the years from crime
and violence. It is possible to examine why and how and to
use this knowledge to design measures to reduce insecurity.
The problem of squatting and evictions is similarly
predictable. Indeed, evidence from cities in all countries
demonstrates similar behaviour patterns by squatters
seeking to reduce the insecurity of their lives, as well as by
public-sector authorities seeking to impose order over a
rapid and apparently chaotic urbanization process.
This <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Report</strong>, therefore, examines these forms
of ‘conventional wisdom’ in some detail to illustrate that the
challenges of reducing urban insecurity are not solely
‘technical’, but rather have much to do with perceptions and
popular understanding, as well. In this regard, the report
explores the mapping of risk, its predictability and the types
of vulnerability that may result. It discusses alternative
pathways to resilience: how combinations of institutional
behaviour, international legal frameworks such as human
rights law, and active recognition of the role of civil society
and local cultures can play important functions in anticipating
risk and mitigating its negative consequences. By
providing a strong description and analysis of these threats
to urban safety and security, along with specific recommendations
for policy and institutions, the report is intended to
contribute to global public awareness of these important
issues.
Part I of the report introduces the issues to be
discussed and it is divided into two chapters. Chapter 1
frames the problem of urban safety and insecurity within the
overall context of human security, and highlights the main
problems posed by crime and violence, tenure insecurity and
evictions, as well as disasters triggered by natural and
human-made hazards. Chapter 2 provides a conceptual
analytical framework for the report, which is based on the
related ideas of vulnerability and resilience. The ways in
which vulnerability and resilience – at the international,
national, local, community and household levels – influence
urban safety and security are also highlighted.
NOTES
1 Commission on Human Security,
2003.
2 See Harold Platt, 2005.
3 World Bank, 2005.
4 Ha Joon Chang, 2003.
5 Dagens Nyheter, 2002.