What makes a safe street? EXPLAINED

[@viceroyvic]

Great points. Also note the differences in lighting and street width!

[@Weavileiscool]

I don’t know if street width matters there just has to be more people to make up for it. Lighting is a great point

[@kalef1234]

Let's make sure it is SMART lighting, that goes DOWN and not to the side and into the sky please.

[@DarkSkyAlly]

Those two LED street lights are actually pretty bright. The other lighting is less bright, but spread out and more inviting.

[@viceroyvic]

​@@Weavileiscool good point. i debated adding that or not but decided to throw it in. from my own personal experience really, but it's the smallest factor probably.

[@jsrodman]

@@Weavileiscool Street width does matter because the ratio of street width to enclosure has a profound effect on the psychological feeling of being an enclosed built place. At the same time, the width of the drivable space affects traffic speed, and higher traffic speed reliably drive away people on foot. These are well-known and documented aspects of urban design.

[@ScramJett]

This is exactly the reason why Dutch kids are free to navigate their cities without adult supervision. There is so much natural surveillance that no one worries about something bad happening to their kids. Even if something does happen, there will be a high probability of good samaritans willing to help. This is in contrast to the human deserts that are American cities and suburbs.

[@annieseaside]

@@ScramJett Not accurate, no Generalization is. I assure you there are millions of locations where everyone knows everyone and everyone's business. It is true in a town of 100 to a City like Boston's North End. It is Cultural also. There are tons of places no one walks and it is not safe also. We drive all the time across all parts of our immense Country. We are also divided by Politics. In Democrat Sanctuary Cities, Crime is as ghastly as the worst movies you've seen. Still even there, if you are rich, you live in high security buildings or gated communities. There are differences between North & South. Keep in mind, Norway is in no way like Italy or Greece. Ireland is not like Austria. Germany is not like Portugal. But all of us love our children, our women, our Elders. We prioritize the areas where family live. Business or more Factory or Port areas are rougher.

[@joshogden3105]

@@annieseasidejust a friendly reminder that immigrants commit objectively fewer crimes per capita than natural-born citizens, so the “sanctuary cities” dig is not based in reality ❤

[@717379]

@@annieseaside When you say "In Democrat Sanctuary Cities, Crime is as ghastly...", it sounds like your saying there is a lot of crime because of Democrat policies. I would argue to the contrary: Democrat politics and high criminality are both promoted by poverty. People faced with hardship strive to change their conditions and hope Democrats will help them achieve it. People who feel safe try to preserve their way of life and vote conservative. 🤷

[@ElijahCem]

And having living spaces within walking distance of those business but you guys already know and talk about that often

[@TheLopsidedobject]

It's not just about the "sense of safety". It's about actual safety.

[@LimitedWard]

In many cases, building a sense of safety can lead to an actual change in crime rates. There's a famous street in Cartagena, Colombia that used to notorious for drug crime. Then the city installed an art installation with colorful umbrellas strung overhead. The goal of the installation was to make the area more attractive for locals and tourists alike to visit. And it actually worked: now tons of people visit that street every year and the constant stream of foot traffic has eliminated drug crime in that area.

[@cadesmandela1935]

Human society functions on appearances like TSA, the actual safety tends not to matter as long as people “feel” safe. Same with crime rates which are demonstrably lower than any period in history, yet people keep “feeling” that crime is going up

[@themindeclectic9821]

​@@LimitedWard I understand that this was not the intention but it also sounds kinda funny that they built a tourist attraction in a super dangerous alley

[@alexanderhanna4278]

bystander effect

[@TheAzul_Indigo]

Wouldn’t narrower, tree-shaded, brick roads with low speed limits also invite more foot traffic? I can’t imagine feeling comfortable window shopping on a sidewalk next to a stroad or freeway in the summer.

[@StephanieDaugherty]

Streets, not roads. There should be a clear linguistic and policy distinction between the two. Streets give you safe and comfortable access to places. Roads take you between places efficiently. The two have to be mutually exclusive by definition, otherwise, you get stroads that are bad at everything.

[@gobblox38]

@TheAzul_Indigo any time of year is bad for walking right next to a stroad. The noise and the smog are constants while the threat of an out of control car is ever present.

[@cmyk8964]

Fun fact: the more common plural of “passerby” is “passersby”; in this construction, “by” is added after “passer” to modify it. It’s like “attorneys general”, “lilies-of-the-valley”, and “goings-on”.

[@robertlee8805]

Now how to convince cities and towns to do more of these builds and designs. Luckily our town and surrounding towns and cities are doing so but there's some hick towns that want to stay the old ways.

[@mklinger23]

I don't mean to stereotype, but a lot of the people against urbanism fall victim to fear tactics. "Cities are dangerous! Ahh!", "they're going to take your car away from you and trap you in your city!", "you'll get mugged if you take the train!" Maybe a good tactic would be to play into that because it seems to work so well with them. "The suburbs are so dangerous! No one is out and about. If anything happens to me, no one will see!", "someone could just come and take my kid! No one would even know!", "I'm going to get into an accident! I have to drive in these horrible conditions?! So many people will be hurt!" Idk if that's a good idea, but just a thought. You can also play into the people that don't want change. "I can't believe they changed up this town! We need to go back to when you could send your kid out to buy a gallon of milk and you didn't have to worry about them getting hit by a car!"

[@The_Pollinator]

Hell yeah

[@maxpeterson8616]

Makes me think of liminal spaces.

[@NJGardengirl1961]

This is SO true! EYES ON

[@AnotherDuck]

I actually like walking through an empty city in the middle of the night when no one is around.

[@cgillespie78]

Passers-by, not passer-bys

[@themindeclectic9821]

That's. Just not even correct

[@Itswat3vah]

Great video!

[@cadesmandela1935]

Except for the 90% of the population that are purely bystanders and don’t intervene or alert authorities even though they see crimes

[@alexanderhanna4278]

The Bystander Effect negates crowd safety my Gs

[@Marconius6]

It also helps when the sidewalks are decently wide, and the cars aren't rushing by at insane speeds.

[@jmwburner]

I would often try to explain this concept to my very suburban ex to no avail. The streets with people are safer.

[@savagesarethebest7251]

This apparently doesn't work in Sweden, my thought goes to the exchange student who got shot in a pizza restaurant in broad daylight in Uppsala less than 2 hours after getting into the country.. And other things like that, and the police kept claiming that gang violence don't affect regular people for many years..

[@forthefuture2792]

The second one had a storm 🤣 jk love y'all

[@limjaheybobandy]

Jane Jacobs was not an urbanist btw, that's a common misconception. She was a journalist and was quite vocal on certain urban topics, but that's pretty much it. I don't think she wrote anything urban planning related outside of Life and Death

[@paperaxes4192]

Do these factors that increase the feeling of safety actually contribute to real safety?

[@rogerwilco2]

Less cars, more walkable streets.

[@TheHawaiianc]

In to days world both places not safe having to crowded is not safe as empty road not because everyone can see it complexity crowded places can over stimulate the person mind and confuse the person, this why pick pocket happen in subway on crowded sidewalk where they can bump in to target easily.. truth I rather be in lite empty place reason at least I can identify the person and scream or brace for out come I feel more safer in lit empty space where I know I can call for help and someone be their…

[@juangonzalez9848]

Eh, this only works with people people. Those of us who dislike people might just prefer that empty street because it isn’t full of people.

[@egrettacaerulea]

@@juangonzalez9848 Yeah that breezy back street is *mood*

[@1996Pinocchio]

How to get people on the streets? Get cars off the streets.

[@timothychinye6008]

Oh wow, so get people out of cars and on to bicycles, walking, electric scooters, etc, can make people safe not just on the road but also off the road? Wow, it's almost like it's extremely stupid how cities continue to favour cars over all else.

[@twgood5882]

More taxpayers, fewer looters. Living the dream !

[@NATESOR]

But... We must make room for cars tho! We can solve traffic with just one more lane!

[@marlow769]

Is this a true sense of safety or a false sense?

[@LimitedWard]

True sense if you look at crime rates between cities that invest in public spaces like this compared to those that don't

[@mikeymullins5305]

Feeling unsafe is a choice. Too many people are paranoid about being around people bc fox news tells them everyones trying to steal things. Its a cultural problem as well as a physical problem

[@LimitedWard]

I don't entirely agree with that. For starters, I don't think denialism is a good strategy. It just make you look out of touch with people who have actually encountered unsafe situations. The argument that "feeling unsafe is a choice" immediately starts to crumble if the opposition can find a single counter example. Yes, in many cases, the safety concerns raised by the media are overblown (I should know, I live in Seattle and yet I haven't burned in flames of hell yet). But the way to fight back against that is through making constructive changes to the built environment to promote the feeling of safety.

[@themindeclectic9821]

​@@LimitedWardagree with you, and disapprove of the absolute nature of the original comment. However I think it is also important to simply not validate paranoia. Obviously making the world safer is good, but statistics show that people in general think the world is a lot more dangerous than it used to be when by every metric, it's factually a lot safer. This means that how safe something is, and how safe people feel, is mostly uncoupled from each other. This means we need to tackle both problems separately, although in both ways

[@themindeclectic9821]

That second place doesn't look unsafe to me at all it looks like childhood

[@SummerThyme-ye5rd]

Crowded streets have more pickpockets though

[@tristanridley1601]

True, but not as much of a problem, and capped by your local poverty problem.

[@LimitedWard]

Not really. Pickpocketing seems to be most prevalent in European cities. But there are plenty of dense urban cities in North America, Asia, etc. that see far lower rates pickpocketing. Pickpockets also prefer to operate at chokepoints with easy getaways, such as the entrances to metro trains. That gives them time to block your path and reach into your pockets. An open pedestrianized street or square is more challenging to successfully steal from someone.

[@locsoluv94]

I would much prefer being pickpocketed than someone pointing a weapon at me demanding my stuff-which is what can happen when the only people around are me and the thief. I'm less likely to get physically harmed from being pickpocketed.

[@Vandrock]

Or just do not be a victim...

[@LimitedWard]

OMG you just solved crime!!

[@Vandrock]

@@LimitedWard No crime to be solved...

[@a1dex]

@@Vandrock you are dangerously unintelligent