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34Understanding Urban Safety and SecurityUltimately, thecontext wherevulnerability andimpact are felt mostheavily is thecommunity levelOne of the mostsignificant changesin security at thecommunity level hasbeen the recentacknowledgement ofindividual rightsagainst the threat offorced evictionsIt is at thehousehold levelthat the effects ofpoverty on riskresponse and onvulnerability … are… most magnifiedand … best analysedquences for urban governance and public-sector managementof the three challenges to urban safety and securityaddressed by this Global Report. 48The neighbourhood or community levelUltimately, the context where vulnerability and impact arefelt most heavily is the community level, which itself variesconsiderably between countries and even within countries.While there is, indeed, a set of cascading factors that generatecumulative and interacting impacts at the communitylevel, there are also community structures and behaviourpatterns which, in turn, interact with urban safety andsecurity risks. These include location and spatial patterns ofsettlement; the historical origins and development ofspecific communities; structures of community power,authority and solidarity; levels and differences in income andwealth; and the perceived justice or injustice in the distributionof various conditions or privileges within thecommunity. Just as there is increasing awareness of intraurbandifferences, analysis of communities needs to takeinto account intra-community differences. The interactionsof these factors and the differences within communitiescondition how urban safety and security is experienced.The degree of safety and security felt within communitiesdepends upon both exogenous and endogenousfactors, as with other levels. This makes it difficult to explainthe impact of specific assaults on security by a single factor.Outcomes depend upon intervening factors that may welldetermine institutional performance – for example, whetherfederal revenue-sharing formulae encourage the steady flowof resources for community policing, resolving tenuredisputes through land registration systems and legal support,or disaster preparedness. Causation is complicated. In casesof communities that experience a high incidence of crimeand violence, it is likely that high incidence is a function ofcumulative impacts. Weak community authorities may beunable to enforce order and prevent criminal and violentbehaviour, which, in turn, may have increased as a result ofmacro-economic changes, such as a reduced urban labourmarket, or sharply increased prices for essential products orservices. In contrast, there may be other communities whereleaders and the community are able to act together to patrolstreets and reduce the likelihood that pedestrians will beaccosted by delinquent youth. Explanations of these differencescome from diverse factors; but it is important toacknowledge that many – though not all – of these originateat the community level.As noted in Chapter 1, one of the most significantchanges in security at the community level has been therecent acknowledgement of individual rights against thethreat of forced evictions. In some communities in whichoccupancy is legalized for the majority of residents, there isoften little sympathy for people vulnerable to evictions.Squatters are regarded as security threats and as illegaloccupants who undermine the stability of neighbourhoods.In other communities inhabited mostly by squatters, inwhich there is empathy and solidarity among households in ashared status, the threat of evictions is largely perceived asan external threat unlikely to be acted upon if communitymembers consolidate their communities as much as possible.In so doing, they try to send a strong and aggressivesignal to public authorities to desist from even consideringevictions.Both circumstances, however, have slowly begun tochange since households lacking secure tenure, whether as aminority within a community or as members of the majorityin a community of squatters, may now appeal to new legalframeworks and have been able in some cases cited inChapters 5 and 6 to find alternative tenure arrangements orto postpone immediate eviction until some form of resettlementsolution can be found.Household and individual levelsThe household is an important locus of threats to securityand safety. First, individual household dwellings are oftenthe sites of many types of crime and violence. The dwellingitself is also frequently the site of burglary and robbery. Butat the same time, the security of the occupancy of thedwelling itself – containing the household – is very muchunder threat. This is particularly so in the case for the urbanpoor living in slums, as indicated in Chapter 1.Understanding security of households, therefore,requires both social analysis – what is happening to thehousehold, as well as within the household – and a broaderphysical and juridical analysis, including the degree ofsecurity of tenure that a specific household has achieved. Assuggested in Chapter 3, there is extensive data on the likelihoodof crime and violence against individual households inslums in cities such as Nairobi. In Australia, there areestimates of the average financial loss coming from householdburglaries and vandalism. At the same time, evidencefrom many countries shows that violent physical abusewithin households against the most vulnerable members,such as women, children, the elderly and the disabled, iscommon. This intra-household violence is yet anotherdimension of widespread intra-household inequality inwhich women and girls frequently receive less food, accessto education and healthcare than male family members.Vulnerability at the household level is partly determinedby obstacles to effective risk response. These aregenerally tied to poverty, including lack of assets. A poorhousehold with insecure residential tenure, and thereforelikely to be forcibly evicted, is, in the first place, in that situationmainly because of poverty. Such a household – oftenlocated in an area prone to natural or industrial hazards – isnot likely to be able to afford insurance against a naturaldisaster or burglary, nor is it likely to be able to evacuatefamily members and household effects on the sudden occurrenceof a catastrophic hazard, such as a hurricane. It is atthe household level that the effects of poverty on riskresponse and on vulnerability, in general, are perhaps mostmagnified and certainly best analysed.The issues raised in the preceding section might alsobe considered from the perspective of an individual. Whileintra-household violence is addressed at specific individuals,in some cases there are, in fact, ‘generic victims’, who may