Safe Cities and Communities - Theme Cities: Solutions for Urban Problems - page 420

Chapter 12
Safe Cities and Communities

Wayne K﻽D﻽ Davies

The system is fractured…governments, courts and the police
cannot do it alone.
Alberta Justice 2007, p. 5

12﻽1 Introduction

Safety is one of the vital human requirements. In Maslow's ( 1943 ) classic hierarchy
of human needs it occupies the second level after hunger, thirst and housing but
before the social, esteem and self-actualization needs of people. Since few people
can provide or afford their own protection, one of the most important duties of gov-
ernments has been to try and ensure the safety and the security of the population.
Although these two terms are often used interchangeably, an often used concep-
tual distinction describes 'safety' as protection from threats from within the society,
such as criminality that involves violence or loss of possessions, while 'security' is
more commonly applied to threats to people from war, terrorism or environmen-
tal disasters, mainly, but not exclusively, from outside causes. Both are needed to
maintain the quality of life of residents, their ability to move around unmolested, to
generate and keep part of the wealth they have created to satisfy their own needs and
enjoyment, and even to avoid death or severe injury. So safety with low crime rates
and security from outside threats represent basic requirements for the continued
prosperity of urban places and even their survival. Although safety considerations
are important for the day-to-day life of citizens it is the problems that created inse-
curity that have been the main causes for the destruction of cities throughout history.
This is why the decisions to wall towns goes back to the dawn of urban life, based
on the need to provide security against outsiders and protection of its economic as-
sets. Within cities, local crime was reduced by local policing and court systems. But
by the eighteenth century advances in the effectiveness of cannons had rendered
walls obsolete. The growth of the modern state led national governments in most