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10Understanding Urban Safety and SecurityThe poor aredisproportionatelyvictimized by thethree threats tosafety and securityexamined in thisvolumeSlums are … thelocus of the greatestdeprivation inmaterial welfare insocieties … and alsolack the institutionaland legal frameworkto guaranteetheir safety andsecurityGlobal statisticalevidence showsstrong correlationsbetween level ofdevelopment andthe degree of urbansecurity, asmeasured by theincidence of disasterand crime andviolenceThis observation, however, must be tempered by thereality of growing numbers of urban residents living inpoverty, lacking basic infrastructure and services, housingand employment, and living in conditions lacking safety andsecurity. As Chapters 3, 5 and 7 of this Global Report willillustrate in detail, the poor are disproportionately victimizedby the three threats to safety and security examined in thisvolume: crime and violence, insecurity of tenure, and naturaland human-made disasters. This unequal distribution of riskand vulnerability is a major burden for the poor as a whole. Italso has a disproportionate impact on groups least able todefend themselves: women, children, the elderly and thedisabled.This distribution of risk and vulnerability is an importantand growing component of daily urban life. It is oftenlinked to the presence of millions of urban residents inslums, which are environments in which much crime andviolence occur, where tenure is least secure, and which areprone to disasters of many kinds. The safety of men, womenand children is at risk every day from crime and trafficaccidents, violent crime, threats to security of tenure, andnatural and human-made hazards. As discussed in Chapter 7,this spatial dimension is reflected in the term ‘geography ofdisaster risk’ for which there is extensive data showing whatkinds of disasters are occurring in cities in specific regions ofthe world, as presented in Chapter 7.A particularly noteworthy type of challenge to urbansafety is the widespread and growing incidence of trafficaccidents and related deaths. An estimated 1.2 millionpeople are killed in road traffic accidents each year, and upto 50 million are injured, occupying between 30 and 70 percent of orthopaedic hospital beds in developing countries. 11One study of Latin America and the Caribbean concludedthat at least 100,000 persons are killed in traffic accidentsand 1.2 million are injured each year in that region, withcosts measured in lost productivity, hospital bills and otherfactors estimated at US$30 billion. 12Later chapters will present and explain the centralsignificance of slums in this nexus of daily urban risk andvulnerability; but recognizing how the characteristics ofslums directly contribute to this nexus is needed to set thecontext for this report. Slums are at once the locus of thegreatest deprivation in material welfare in societies, theweakest human capital in terms of investment in health andeducation, and also lack the institutional and legal frameworkto guarantee their safety and security. These forms ofdeprivation are cumulative and interact with one another.The poorest in most urban areas live in slums lacking boththe safeguards for protection from private actions and unjustpublic policies. Insecurity of tenure – which affects largenumbers of poor slum dwellers – itself weakens the possibilityof establishing communities, community institutions andcultural norms to govern and regulate behaviour. The slumsrepresent one part of what has been termed ‘the geographyof misery’. 13One important dimension of this context is the factthat human life in cities is itself precarious in the absence ofbasic services such as housing, water supply and sanitation,as well as food. Common waterborne diseases such ascholera or vector-borne diseases such as malaria can quicklyreach epidemic proportions in dense underserved urbanareas and in the absence of medical prophylaxis. The probabilitiesof death from health threats such as these constitutethe greatest challenges to the security of individuals,especially in urban slums. These health threats to urbansafety and security are not discussed in this report; but, asmentioned earlier, they are part of the chronic vulnerabilitiesthat constitute an important dimension of urban poverty.Lack of basic services, however, is not simply a microlevelissue affecting individuals, households andcommunities. It also extends to cities and nations as a wholeand represents significant macro-economic costs in manysocieties. This Global Report will present data demonstratingthat urban insecurity is a major obstacle to macro-economicgrowth in some countries and deserves policy attention atthe highest levels of government. As shown in Chapter 7,the importance of urban insecurity has already been recognisedby the global insurance industry by assigning specificcities around the world to risk categories. Global statisticalevidence shows strong correlations between level of developmentand the degree of urban security, as measured by theincidence of disaster and crime and violence. 14 GDP growthrates, for example, correlate negatively with homicide rates,although this is often offset by income inequality. But, asshown in Chapter 3, this correlation is reversed for propertycrime, demonstrating other causal mechanisms.An additional urban dimension of this context is howthe scale and density of cities affects urban safety andsecurity. Subsequent chapters will present some aspects ofthis dimension, especially with respect to the incidence ofcrime and violence, as well as the impacts of natural andtechnological hazards, which tend to be higher in larger anddenser urban areas. There are important caveats to thisconclusion, including, for example, that very high densityareas may have lower crime rates, such as New York, whilethere may also be an increased vulnerability in low densityregions, such as isolated areas lacking social and institutionalmechanisms for protection. As indicated in Chapter 3, theroles of culture and governance are but two of the factorsthat mediate these relationships and make clear correlationsdifficult to establish.While these caveats apply to the risks of crime andviolence, they do not necessarily apply to disasters where theconcentration of more people also concentrates and magnifiesrisk and the likelihood of death, injury and propertydamage. The case of rapid growth in Dhaka, Bangladesh,illustrates this process of increasing risk in large cities (seeChapter 7). One large risk insurance company has identifiedthe 15 largest cities at high risk due to natural hazards,including earthquakes, tropical storms, tsunamis andvolcanic eruptions (also see Table 7.5 in Chapter 7). Smallercities usually lack the institutional capacity to prepare forand manage risks. In physical terms, urbanization processesat all levels tend to change the risk and hazard profiles ofcities. As stated earlier, this concentration of risk is greatestfor the urban poor living in slums. All of these issues shouldfocus more attention on urban governance, adding riskmanagement and prevention to the already considerable