Feeling Safe in Urban Estates: Learning from Riverwood, Sydney

Abstract

Feeling safe is a necessity for quality of life. Conversely, feeling unsafe has a substantial impact on residents’ quality of life. How does design impact on the perception of safety, and moreover, how can design reduce incidences of crime? Safety is influenced by many social, economic, and wellbeing factors that affect residents’ experiences of their built environments. Neighbourhood and urban design – which are liable to be affected by the perceived quality of local spaces – are likely to be significant factors influencing broader residents’ feelings of safety. To these ends, this paper reviews recent literature on how design processes have influenced perceived and actual safety in public spaces. This paper focuses on different aspects of urban safety, including planning, management, and design in a mix-tenure neighbourhood. The paper selected Riverwood, a social housing renewal neighbourhood located in southwest Sydney, as the study area. Data collection methods used by the author for this paper include direct-observation and a cross-sectional survey of 62 households, aimed at shedding light on what are residents' preferences to improve safety perception in public spaces. The paper finds that, for greater safety of neighbourhoods in urban estates, design approaches need toconsider both physical and social-cultural factors; and that to achieve this, practical and realistic mechanisms are required to improve existing estates and to design future estates better. The findings of the study reveal that, addressing the concerns revolving around the trust-deficit in the community, will be the cornerstone to promote residents feeling of safety