Safe City Research Articles

Staff perspectives of barriers and facilitators to implementation of the Consult for Addiction Treatment and Care in Hospitals (CATCH) program in New York City safety net hospitals

Staff perspectives of barriers and facilitators to implementation of the Consult for Addiction Treatment and Care in Hospitals (CATCH) program in New York City safety net hospitals

Seismic Vulnerability Along the Kaur-South OKU Highway in Bengkulu, Indonesia: Planning for More Resilient and Safer Cities

Seismic Vulnerability Along the Kaur-South OKU Highway in Bengkulu, Indonesia: Planning for More Resilient and Safer Cities

Urban Planning of the Past in the Face of Potential Airborne Threats During World War II

This paper presents a theoretical review of scientific articles on urban planning under airborne attacks between World War I and World War II. Publications on this topic are few and belong to foreign researchers. Only a small part of works was translated and published in architectural journals of the USSR early in the 20th century.Purpose: The literature review of urban planning in the face of airborne threats.Methodology: The analysis of Russian and foreign publications and systematic analysis of the works of architects.Research findings: Since the 1930s, the problem of effective urban planning in conditions of airborne defense has been posed in the architectural environment. Despite widespread publicity and safe city pilot projects, none was fully realized.Value: The analysis of Russian and foreign publications shows that airborne threats cease to be a hot topic, despite continuing military conflicts.

Transformative Local Governments: Addressing Social Urban Challenges by Bringing People and Politics Together

As the tier of government closest to people, local government plays a key role in answering local needs and aspirations. However, local governments are often under-resourced, leaving them inadequately responsive to many of these critical local demands. Moreover, accountability to their citizens, which is the core of a well-functioning local democracy, is often lacking because the necessary formal laws and informal norms do not enable citizens to influence the decision-making process in a collaborative, creative, and evidence-based process that promotes collective learning. Through innovative case study analyses from around the world, the 12 contributions in this thematic issue delve into the multifaceted ways in which local governments can bridge the gap between people and politics, offering innovative perspectives on participatory governance, co-creation, and collaborative decision-making for inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities. The cases showcase innovations and challenges in the urban environment, capturing different ways to bring people and politics together in an attempt to co-create solutions for a sustainable and resilient urban future. The insights provided by this plethora of cases provides lessons that can help revolutionise international, national, and local urban policy to empower local authorities and their local communities to address the increasingly urgent challenges faced by municipalities around the world, ensuring an inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable future for the generations to come.

Towards Sustainable Development of the Old City: Design Practice of Alleyway Integration in Old City Area Based on Heritage Corridor Theory

Urbanization has increasingly led to the overlapping of old and new spaces in historic city areas, creating challenges in preserving valuable urban heritage. To meet the requirements of the effective protection, utilization, and sustainable development of these historical spaces, this study introduces a comprehensive framework grounded in the theory of heritage corridors. The proposed framework subdivides and connects fragmented historical spatial resources through the “point–line–plane” dimensions, fostering sustainability across the environmental, ecological, and cultural domains. To validate the effectiveness of the framework, we apply it to the historic city center of Wuxi. This case study demonstrates that integrating spatial resources within the old city enhances the overall quality of urban living spaces in the historic district. The findings suggest that the heritage corridor framework is a feasible and systematic approach for the sustainable renewal of historic urban areas. Furthermore, this study offers valuable insights for advancing Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11), particularly in promoting inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities.

Exploring the scale and scope of community policing in North-Western Ghana

Global urban population growth appears to challenge governments’ ability to ensure access to essential urban services, such as policing. This situation is impeding the achievement of SDG target 11.1. However, citizens’ role in co-producing safe and secure neighbourhoods has been instrumental in augmenting limited governments’ efforts in the provision of adequate security. Acknowledging the relevance of co-producing community policing (CP) outcomes in neighbourhood crime management, this study critically examines the awareness, knowledge, understanding, and effectiveness of community policing strategies in North-Western Ghana. In a mixed methods research design, the study revealed a low level of awareness of community policing strategies in North-Western Ghana, which constrains the efforts to initiate and benefit from the outcomes of co-producing community policing. Consequently, knowledge, understanding, and effectiveness of community policing strategies appear very limited and, therefore, draw back the desire for inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities as detailed in SDG 11. Restoring community watch committees and enkindling effective co-production of community policing outcomes are critical parts to the global crime management strategies.

Examining the Realization of Residential Satisfaction in the State’s New Housing Projects, with Reference to Cairo, Egypt

Abstract Egypt is currently witnessing unprecedented development in the sector of low-income housing. Up to this point, little research has been conducted to determine how such projects contribute to genuine residents’ satisfaction. Residential satisfaction refers to the sense of contentment that one experiences when their housing needs are met. Residential satisfaction was intended to reveal not just what the existing living conditions were like but also which aspects the government should focus on improving for future low-income housing schemes. The concept of residency encompasses physical, psychological, and social aspects, making it a multifaceted and intricate idea. This paper will address residential satisfaction in relation to the three domains: housing unit, neighborhood, and social environment, as well as the socio-economic characteristics of the occupants, which have also received relatively little investigation. The objective of this study is to identify the factors that contribute to the residential satisfaction of low-income housing in Al-Asmarat. The study adopts a quantitative analysis of a purpose-designed questionnaire survey that investigates residential satisfaction in one of the state’s new low-income housing projects. Data was collected from 120 respondents living in the Al-Asmarat project to evaluate their residential satisfaction. The results showed that residents expressed high levels of satisfaction with many aspects of their new housing project and dissatisfaction with other aspects, for example: 1-Plumbing 2-Internet connection in Housing unit and 1-Living Costs 2-Job opportunities in Neighborhood. Additionally, residents prioritized the following parameters in housing units: level of quietness, residents’ sense of attachment to the unit, and proximity of services. Regarding the neighborhood, they prioritized: residents’ sense of attachment to the neighborhood; the level of street cleanliness; the presence of a youth center; positive official response to residents’ complaints; and aesthetic standards of the streets. Concerning the social environment, they prioritized: the strength of relations between neighbors and the degree of safety in Al-Asmarat city. In summary, it is suggested that the findings of this study may help developers and policymakers improve future low-income housing projects in Egypt towards the development of a better built environment.

지속가능한 도시로서의 스마트 도시재생을 위한 리질리언스 정책 방향에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study is to find Policy measures that can help smart cities contribute to urban regeneration as sustainable safe cities. This is a policy direction to move toward a sustainable city by combining smart cities and urban regeneration, which are spreading as models of future safe cities. After analyzing the trends of existing papers using text mining techniques, the concept of disaster resilience was grafted to smart city regeneration. The basic elements that constitute the qualitative criteria of resilience were used as the study method for building a sustainable city. Results, the policy direction of resilience construction for a ‘sustainable urban regeneration-type smart city’ was presented in three aspects. First, it’s constructing resilience capacity in smart urban regeneration plans. The qualitative criteria for resilience capacity were presented as four: Resourcefulness Robustness, Rapidity, and Redundancy. The four elements of disaster preparedness resilience capacity can be used as qualitative criteria for resilience required for smart urban regeneration as a safe city. The Second is the construction of the ‘decision support system for resilience’ that is needed for smart urban regeneration plans. For this, seven types of infrastructure were presented. These infrastructural interrelationships form the basis for the operation of the ‘decision support system for resilience’. Third, the establishment of ‘Privacy by Design as a smart resilience’ is necessary for the preemptive protection of personal information in smart urban regeneration. Privacy protection is essential for a modern safe city. In conclusion, we hope that the policy directions of the above three aspects will be linked to legislation and contribute to the activation of urban regeneration-type smart city as a sustainable and safe city in the future.

Charting sustainable urban development through a systematic review of SDG11 research

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 underscores the imperative of creating inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and communities by 2030. Here we employ bibliometric techniques to assess the evolving landscape of SDG11 research. Using a comprehensive dataset of over 21,000 scholarly publications, we investigate publication trends, thematic focus areas, authorship patterns, keyword co-occurrences and citation networks related to SDG11 research. The results reveal a consistent increase in research output, reflecting the growing global interest in urban sustainability studies. We identify influential authors, organizations and countries shaping the research landscape, highlighting existing global collaborative networks and emerging research hubs. Core thematic areas emphasize critical topics and interdisciplinary connections. Citation networks underscore the impacts of disseminating research outputs, including seminal works. This study offers insights for policymakers, academics and practitioners to align their collective efforts toward sustainable, inclusive and climate-resilient urban development. Moreover, it advances SDG11 by noting opportunities for further research, knowledge dissemination and international collaboration.

Operational LCA of a street with active mobility strategies in northern México

Active mobility (AM) is a fundamental part of a sustainable mobility system that generates environmental and social advantages; however, its use and operation are understudied using quantitative tools such as life cycle assessment (LCA), especially in the Latin American context. This study aimed to analyze the use stage of a street located in Northern Mexico. Two real scenarios were compared, one conventional (CO-SC-2020) and another sustainable (SU-SC-2022), which incorporated the concept of “complete streets” through a bicycle lane and the improvement of pedestrian spaces. Available data from the “Vía Libre” project and PIMUS, as well as SIMAPRO and Ecoinvent, were used for the LCA. The results indicated that the environmental impacts derived from transportation could be reduced through strategies such as active mobility (6.55%) and carpooling (77%), favoring the conversion of cities that consider the automobile as the guiding axis to more sustainable, inclusive, and safe cities.

The Techno-Optics of Safety: Surveillance and Women's Ambivalent Experiences in South Korea's “Smart Safe City”

The Techno-Optics of Safety: Surveillance and Women's Ambivalent Experiences in South Korea's “Smart Safe City”

Eating at the Margins: Negotiating Food Safety and Food Security in Ho Chi Minh City’s Charities

While food security in Vietnam has significantly improved in recent decades, many urbanites still rely on private food charities. Meanwhile, growing food safety concerns have been studied with a strong focus on emerging middle classes, whereas socio-economic precarity connected to food safety has attracted less attention. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in food charities in Ho Chi Minh City, this article examines how symbolic and spatial boundaries perpetuate power imbalances within charities and affect patrons’ food safety practices. It challenges the narrative that caring about food safety is limited to affluent consumers, instead highlighting the structural constraints that prevent people in urban poverty from acting upon food safety concerns, including (1) power imbalances within food charities and (2) lack of overall food security. The research shows the limitations of food charities in establishing long-term food security for socio-economically marginalised citizens and of a governmental food safety approach emphasising consumer ‘choice’.

Spatial distribution, pollution level and human health risk assessment of heavy metals in urban street dust at neighbourhood scale

Urban street dust (UStD) is a vital issue for human health and is crucial for urban sustainability. This study aims to enhance the creation of safe, affordable, and resilient cities by examining environmental contamination and health risks in urban residential areas. Specifically, it investigates the concentrations and spatial distribution of chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn) in UStD in Yenimahalle, Ankara. The mean concentrations of Zn, Cr, Pb, Cd, Ni, and Cu in UStD were 97.98, 66.88, 55.22, 52.45, 38.37, and 3.81 mg/kg, respectively. The geoaccumulation pollution index (Igeo) values for these elements were: Cd (5.12), Ni (1.61), Cr (1.21), Pb (1.13), Cu (0.78), and Zn (0.24). These indices indicate that the area is moderately polluted with Cr, Pb, and Ni, uncontaminated to moderately contaminated with Cu and Zn, and extremely polluted with Cd. The hazard index (HI) values for Cr, Cd, Ni, Cu, Pb, and Zn were below the non-carcinogenic risk threshold for adults, indicating no significant risk. However, for children, the HI values for Pb, Ni, Cd, and Zn were 3.37, 1.80, 1.25, and 1.25, respectively, suggesting a higher risk. Carcinogenic risk (RI) of Cd, Ni, and Pb was significant for both children and adults, indicating that exposure through ingestion, inhalation, and dermal contact is hazardous. The findings highlight the need for strategic mitigation measures for both natural and anthropogenic activities, providing essential insights for residents, policymakers, stakeholders, and urban planners.

Experiment in resilient city: An evaluation of China’s demonstration city of safe development policies

The drive of resilient city explores a new path for urban governance in the context of risk society, and China’s demonstration city of safe development (DCSD) policies are the indigenous practice of resilient city idea. This paper used text mining technology and PMC-index model to establish an evaluation system for DCSD policies. Then eight representative sample DCSD policies were assessed. The results show that the average PMC-index scores 5.38 and reaches a great consistency grade. Nine model indicators indicate that the Chinese government has a clear policy focus on the efforts of DCSD, prefers to use compulsory type policy tools, and fully mobilizes the public to participate in safe city development jointly. Meanwhile, structural imbalance in policy instruments is a prominent disadvantage. The research establishes an evaluation system for DCSD policies, and provides a new perspective for the explorations of resilient cities worldwide. The extensive applicability of the policy evaluation model needs to be studied in depth in the future.

Immunity-Empowered Collaboration Security Protection for Mega Smart Cities

The cyberphysical systems of smart cities are facing increasingly severe attack situations, and traditional separate protection methods are difficult to effectively respond to. It is urgent to coordinate public safety and cybersecurity protection. However, the integration of the two faces many challenges and is a very promising research field. The aim of this study is to investigate technical approaches for the synergy between public safety and cybersecurity. This paper proposes a smart city safety protection model inspired by the human immune mechanism. It was found that through a three-line defense architecture similar to the human immune mechanism, and with the help of certain algorithms and functional middleware modules, public safety and cybersecurity protection components can be dynamically combined to achieve collaboration. This work has verified through experiments a valuable path to effectively resist complicated attack threats intertwined with public safety and cybersecurity factors.

Data Structure and Modeling: A Proposal for Blockchain-Based Video Management System for Smart City Safety

Data Structure and Modeling: A Proposal for Blockchain-Based Video Management System for Smart City Safety

Day-to-Night Street View Image Generation for 24-Hour Urban Scene Auditing Using Generative AI.

A smarter city should be a safer city. Nighttime safety in metropolitan areas has long been a global concern, particularly for large cities with diverse demographics and intricate urban forms, whose citizens are often threatened by higher street-level crime rates. However, due to the lack of night-time urban appearance data, prior studies based on street view imagery (SVI) rarely addressed the perceived night-time safety issue, which can generate important implications for crime prevention. This study hypothesizes that night-time SVI can be effectively generated from widely existing daytime SVIs using generative AI (GenAI). To test the hypothesis, this study first collects pairwise day-and-night SVIs across four cities diverged in urban landscapes to construct a comprehensive day-and-night SVI dataset. It then trains and validates a day-to-night (D2N) model with fine-tuned brightness adjustment, effectively transforming daytime SVIs to nighttime ones for distinct urban forms tailored for urban scene perception studies. Our findings indicate that: (1) the performance of D2N transformation varies significantly by urban-scape variations related to urban density; (2) the proportion of building and sky views are important determinants of transformation accuracy; (3) within prevailed models, CycleGAN maintains the consistency of D2N scene conversion, but requires abundant data. Pix2Pix achieves considerable accuracy when pairwise day-and-night-night SVIs are available and are sensitive to data quality. StableDiffusion yields high-quality images with expensive training costs. Therefore, CycleGAN is most effective in balancing the accuracy, data requirement, and cost. This study contributes to urban scene studies by constructing a first-of-its-kind D2N dataset consisting of pairwise day-and-night SVIs across various urban forms. The D2N generator will provide a cornerstone for future urban studies that heavily utilize SVIs to audit urban environments.

Factors Influencing Safety Consciousness and Violations Among Licensed Drivers

The primary objective of this research was to identify and analyze the factors influencing driving safety in Medan city. By utilizing survey data as the primary source, the researchers sought to employ logistic regression analysis to uncover key determinants. The overarching goal was to gain insights into the specific factors, such as gender, latest education, safety drive, miscalculation, and violation, that significantly impact driving safety in the targeted area. Survey data served as the foundation for this research, with logistic regression employed as the analytical tool of choice. The data collected from drivers in Medan was meticulously examined to assess the influence of various factors on driving safety. The results of the analysis revealed several noteworthy findings regarding driving safety in Medan. Gender, latest education, safety drive, miscalculation, and violation emerged as significant factors affecting driving safety in the city. Notably, safety drives and violations were identified as particularly influential in determining the overall safety of driving in Medan. The majority of drivers in Medan possessed a driver's license, with a significant proportion being teenagers. A correlation between driver's license prediction and variables such as status and latest education was observed. However, age did not exhibit a significant correlation with driving miscalculations. These findings provide a foundation for the development of targeted driving safety programs in Medan, emphasizing the importance of awareness, reducing violations, and considering demographic factors like gender and recent education for effective safety driving strategies.

Identifying the Contributing Sources of Uncertainties in Urban Flood Vulnerability in South Korea Considering Multiple GCMs, SSPs, Weight Determination Methods, and MCDM Techniques

This study quantified uncertainties involved in assessing the future flood vulnerability in 33 urban areas with population exceeding designated thresholds in South Korea. The driver-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) framework was utilized as the study procedure, integrating social, economic, and environmental factors. In addition, a total of 220 cases of combinations were examined, encompassing twenty general circulation models combined with shared socioeconomic pathway scenarios, five weight determination methods, and three multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques, as sources of inherent uncertainties in the process. The rankings of urban flood vulnerability (UFV) for the selected cities were comprehensively assessed considering all combinations, followed by an analysis of variance test to investigate contributing sources of uncertainties. As a result, Incheon and Busan were found to be vulnerable to flooding, while Yeongcheon and Andong appeared to be safe cities. Some cities exhibited wide ranges in their rankings, such as Daegu, Yangpyeon, and Jeongeup. The identified contributing sources were weighting (58%), MCDM (27%), and the combination of weighting and MCDM methods together (15%). This study revealed that weight determination methods and MCDM techniques are the primary sources of uncertainties in the assessment of future UFV instead of multiple GCMs and SSPs. This finding underscores the importance for decision-makers and stakeholders to carefully consider these uncertainties for sustainable flood risk management and prevention.

Using secondary data from mobile phones to monitor local food market access during disasters: an Australian case study

ABSTRACT Community food security is vital to creating inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities with zero hunger, in alignment with the United Nations' Sustainable Development. Local food economies are fundamental to community food security, but there is little knowledge of how they adapt to disruptions, such as pandemics and natural disasters. Monitoring local food market access during disasters is essential to ensuring local food economies are not accidentally impacted by policy decisions. This study established a methodological framework to monitor local food market access, integrating secondary mobility data and the novel use of readily available analytical tools. The validity of the approach was tested at two local food markets in Southeast Queensland, Australia, during disruptive events. The results show that the 2019 bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacted the number of visits to both markets. The findings show mobile phone data can act as a useful proxy for directly observing visitation patterns, providing insights that can be combined with information about online purchasing and delivery services. The method can be used immediately to monitor and evaluate local food economies during and after disasters. Telecommunications companies can aid disaster response and recovery by sharing mobility data for policy decision support.