Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

10
Understanding Urban Safety and Security
The poor are
disproportionately
victimized by the
three threats to
safety and security
examined in this
volume
Slums are … the
locus of the greatest
deprivation in
material welfare in
societies … and also
lack the institutional
and legal framework
to guarantee
their safety and
security
<strong>Global</strong> statistical
evidence shows
strong correlations
between level of
development and
the degree of urban
security, as
measured by the
incidence of disaster
and crime and
violence
This observation, however, must be tempered by the
reality of growing numbers of urban residents living in
poverty, lacking basic infrastructure and services, housing
and employment, and living in conditions lacking safety and
security. As Chapters 3, 5 and 7 of this <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Report</strong> will
illustrate in detail, the poor are disproportionately victimized
by the three threats to safety and security examined in this
volume: crime and violence, insecurity of tenure, and natural
and human-made disasters. This unequal distribution of risk
and vulnerability is a major burden for the poor as a whole. It
also has a disproportionate impact on groups least able to
defend themselves: women, children, the elderly and the
disabled.
This distribution of risk and vulnerability is an important
and growing component of daily urban life. It is often
linked to the presence of millions of urban residents in
slums, which are environments in which much crime and
violence occur, where tenure is least secure, and which are
prone to disasters of many kinds. The safety of men, women
and children is at risk every day from crime and traffic
accidents, violent crime, threats to security of tenure, and
natural and human-made hazards. As discussed in Chapter 7,
this spatial dimension is reflected in the term ‘geography of
disaster risk’ for which there is extensive data showing what
kinds of disasters are occurring in cities in specific regions of
the world, as presented in Chapter 7.
A particularly noteworthy type of challenge to urban
safety is the widespread and growing incidence of traffic
accidents and related deaths. An estimated 1.2 million
people are killed in road traffic accidents each year, and up
to 50 million are injured, occupying between 30 and 70 per
cent of orthopaedic hospital beds in developing countries. 11
One study of Latin America and the Caribbean concluded
that at least 100,000 persons are killed in traffic accidents
and 1.2 million are injured each year in that region, with
costs measured in lost productivity, hospital bills and other
factors estimated at US$30 billion. 12
Later chapters will present and explain the central
significance of slums in this nexus of daily urban risk and
vulnerability; but recognizing how the characteristics of
slums directly contribute to this nexus is needed to set the
context for this report. Slums are at once the locus of the
greatest deprivation in material welfare in societies, the
weakest human capital in terms of investment in health and
education, and also lack the institutional and legal framework
to guarantee their safety and security. These forms of
deprivation are cumulative and interact with one another.
The poorest in most urban areas live in slums lacking both
the safeguards for protection from private actions and unjust
public policies. Insecurity of tenure – which affects large
numbers of poor slum dwellers – itself weakens the possibility
of establishing communities, community institutions and
cultural norms to govern and regulate behaviour. The slums
represent one part of what has been termed ‘the geography
of misery’. 13
One important dimension of this context is the fact
that human life in cities is itself precarious in the absence of
basic services such as housing, water supply and sanitation,
as well as food. Common waterborne diseases such as
cholera or vector-borne diseases such as malaria can quickly
reach epidemic proportions in dense underserved urban
areas and in the absence of medical prophylaxis. The probabilities
of death from health threats such as these constitute
the greatest challenges to the security of individuals,
especially in urban slums. These health threats to urban
safety and security are not discussed in this report; but, as
mentioned earlier, they are part of the chronic vulnerabilities
that constitute an important dimension of urban poverty.
Lack of basic services, however, is not simply a microlevel
issue affecting individuals, households and
communities. It also extends to cities and nations as a whole
and represents significant macro-economic costs in many
societies. This <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Report</strong> will present data demonstrating
that urban insecurity is a major obstacle to macro-economic
growth in some countries and deserves policy attention at
the highest levels of government. As shown in Chapter 7,
the importance of urban insecurity has already been recognised
by the global insurance industry by assigning specific
cities around the world to risk categories. <strong>Global</strong> statistical
evidence shows strong correlations between level of development
and the degree of urban security, as measured by the
incidence of disaster and crime and violence. 14 GDP growth
rates, for example, correlate negatively with homicide rates,
although this is often offset by income inequality. But, as
shown in Chapter 3, this correlation is reversed for property
crime, demonstrating other causal mechanisms.
An additional urban dimension of this context is how
the scale and density of cities affects urban safety and
security. Subsequent chapters will present some aspects of
this dimension, especially with respect to the incidence of
crime and violence, as well as the impacts of natural and
technological hazards, which tend to be higher in larger and
denser urban areas. There are important caveats to this
conclusion, including, for example, that very high density
areas may have lower crime rates, such as New York, while
there may also be an increased vulnerability in low density
regions, such as isolated areas lacking social and institutional
mechanisms for protection. As indicated in Chapter 3, the
roles of culture and governance are but two of the factors
that mediate these relationships and make clear correlations
difficult to establish.
While these caveats apply to the risks of crime and
violence, they do not necessarily apply to disasters where the
concentration of more people also concentrates and magnifies
risk and the likelihood of death, injury and property
damage. The case of rapid growth in Dhaka, Bangladesh,
illustrates this process of increasing risk in large cities (see
Chapter 7). One large risk insurance company has identified
the 15 largest cities at high risk due to natural hazards,
including earthquakes, tropical storms, tsunamis and
volcanic eruptions (also see Table 7.5 in Chapter 7). Smaller
cities usually lack the institutional capacity to prepare for
and manage risks. In physical terms, urbanization processes
at all levels tend to change the risk and hazard profiles of
cities. As stated earlier, this concentration of risk is greatest
for the urban poor living in slums. All of these issues should
focus more attention on urban governance, adding risk
management and prevention to the already considerable