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Social Dimension

Urban Design Dimensions: 3.Social Dimension

By Arnav Saikia - September 28, 2015

WHAT IS SOCIAL DIMENSION OF URBAN DESIGN:

Urban Design’s Social Dimension can be defined as the relationship between space and society.
This chapter focuses on five key aspects of Urban Design:

the relationship between people and space

the concept of the public realm
neighbourhoods
safety and security
the control of public space

PEOPLE AND SPACE:

the physical form of a room clearly affects what its users can &cannot do- a window in an
otherwise solid wall allows a person to see out; a solid wall without a window does not afford
that opportunity

The relationship between people and their environment starts with architectural or environmental
determinism, where the physical environment has determining the influence on human behaviour.

space with more number of street-level doors is more

space with few or no street-level doors is less interactive interactive

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By shaping the built environment, urban designers influence patterns of human activity and thus,
of social life. Dear & Wolch (1989) argued that social relations can be:

Constituted through space – where site characteristics influence settlement form.

Constrained by space – where the physical environment facilitated or obstructs human activity.
Mediated by space – where the friction-of-distance facilitates or inhibits, the development of
various practices.

less interaction due to spatial arrangement more interaction due to the spatial arrangement

The relationship between people and their environment is best conceived as a continuous two-way
process in which people create and modify spaces while at the same time being influenced by
those spaces.

THE PUBLIC REALM:

The public realm has ‘physical’ (i.e. space) and ‘social’ (i.e.
activity) dimensions. Public life involves relatively open and
universal social contexts, in contrast to private life, which is
intimate, familiar, shielded, controlled by the individual, and shared public realm in India

only with family and friends.

De ning Public Space:

“Public space relates to all those parts of the built and natural environment where the public have free access.
It encompasses- all the streets, squares and other right of way, whether predominantly in residential,
commercial or community/civic uses; the open spaces and parks, and the “public/private” spaces where public
access in unrestricted (at least during daylight hours). It includes the interfaces with key internal and private
spaces to which the public normally has free access.”

(Carmona et al 2004: 10)

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The relative ‘publicness’ of space can be considered in terms of three qualities:

Ownership- whether the spaces is publicly or privately owned.

Access- whether the public has access to the place.
Use – whether the space is actively used and shared by different individuals and groups.

Public Life:

Public life occurs in social space used for social interaction,

regardless of whether it is publicly owned or privately owned
space, provided it is accessible to the public.

Public life can be broadly grouped into two interrelated types –

‘formal’ and ‘informal’.

The Public Realm:

The public realm can be considered to be the sites and settings of formal and informal public life.
The concept of physical public realm extends to all the space accessible to and used by the public,
including:

External public space – those pieces of land lying between private landholdings (e.g. public
squares, streets, highways, parks, parking lots, stretches of coastline, forest, lakes and rivers.).
These are all spaces that are accessible and available to all.
Internal public space – various public institutions (libraries, museums, town halls, etc.) plus
most public transport facilities (train stations, bus stations, airports, etc.)
External and internal quasi- ‘public’ space – although legally private, some public spaces –
university campuses, sports ground, restaurant, cinemas, theatres, nightclubs, shopping malls –
also form part of the public realm but includes privatised external public spaces.

Accessible Public Realm:

The criterion of universal access (open to all) suggests a single or unitary public realm. A
constructivist interpretation, however, suggests there is no single or unitary public realm since a
space that is public for citizen A may not be public for citizen B.

The Democratic Public Realm:

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The key functions and qualities of the public realm relate to a notion of a ‘democratic’ (and
political) public realm – one that has a physical or material basis, but which variously facilitates
and symbolises socio-political activities regarded as important to democratic citizenship.

The Decline of the Public Realm:

Use of public realm has been challenged by various developments,

such as increased personal mobility- initially through cars and
subsequently through the internet. Public realm activities like
leisure, entertainment, gaining information and consumption can
be satisfied at home through the television or the internet.
Domestication of such activities has meant the public spaces are less significant as a focus of
people’s lives.

NEIGHBOURHOODS:
Overlaid on the physical and spatial design of a neighbourhood were more social ideas and
objectives, such as social balance (mixed communities), neighbour interaction and the creation of
identity and sense-of-community. Three interrelated strands of thinking thus informed
neighbourhood design:

1. Neighbourhoods have been proposed and/or designed as a planning device – that is, as a
relatively pragmatic and useful way of structuring and organising urban areas.
2. Neighbourhoods have been proposed and/or designed as areas of identity and character to
create or enhance a sense-of-place.
3. Neighbourhoods have been proposed and/or designed as a means of creating areas of greater
social/ resident interaction and enhancing neighbourliness.

Some ways how design can support neighbourhood diversity, Talen (2009a: 184-5):

by showing how multi-family units can be accommodated in single-family blocks.

by designing links between diverse land uses and housing types.
by creating paths through edges that disrupt connectivity.
by increasing density near public transit.
by demonstrating the value of non-standard unit types like courtyard housing, closes and
residential mews.
by fitting small businesses and live/work units in residential neighbourhoods.
by developing codes that successfully accommodate land-use diversity.
by softening the impact of big box retail development in under-invested commercial strips.
by designing streets that function as collective spaces.
by connecting institutions to their surrounding residential fabric.

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SAFETY AND SECURITY:

People face a variety of threats in the urban environment – crime, ‘street barbarism’; acts of
terrorism; fast-moving vehicles; natural disaster/phenomena; and unseen problems such as air
pollution and water contamination.

Creating a sense of security and safety is an essential prerequisite of successful urban design.

Fear of Victimisation:

A distinction should be made between ‘fear’ and ‘risk’- the

difference between ‘feeling safe’ and actually ‘being safe’.

In response to fear-of-victimisation, many people take

precautionary actions either to avoid the risk or, where risk
avoidance is not possible or desirable, to reduce their exposure
through risk management. Hence fear-of-victimisation is a cause of
exclusion not just from particular places but from much of the
public realm.

Many people are fearful of certain parts of urban areas, such as pedestrian subways, dark alleys
and areas that are deserted or crowded with the ‘wrong kind of people’.

Crime, Disorder and Incivility:

In public space, it is important to distinguish between criminal and disorderly behaviour since it is
often disorderly rather than criminal behaviour that is problematic.

Approaches to Crime Prevention:

‘Dispositional’ and ‘situational’ represent two main approaches to crime prevention. The
dispositional approach involves removing or lessening an individual’s motivation to commit acts,
through education and moral guidance. The main thrust of the situational approach is that once an
offender has made the initial decision to offend (i.e. has become motivated) then the techniques
make the commission of that crime in that particular place more difficult.

Situational measures manipulate not just the physical but also the social and psychological settings
for the crime. There are four overarching opportunity reduction strategies:

Increasing the perceived effort of the offence.

Increasing the perceived risk of the offence.
Reducing the reward from the offence
Removing excuses for the offence.

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Opportunity Reduction Methods:

Opportunity reduction methods have been developed within the mainstream urban design
literature with key themes of activity, surveillance, territorial definition and control. Jacobs argued
that, rather than by police, the ‘public peace’ was kept by an intricate network of voluntary
controls and standards and that sidewalk, adjacent uses and their users were ‘active participants’
in the ‘drama of civilisation versus barbarism’.

Hillier, based on his research concludes:

The relative safety of different dwelling types is affected by the number of sides on which the
dwelling is exposed to the public realm (flats are most safe; detached dwellings least safe).
Living in higher density areas reduces risk, with ambient ground-level density (as opposed to
off-the-ground density) correlating particularly strong with safer living.
Good local movement is beneficial, but larger-scale thorough-movement across areas is not.
Where large-scale movement exists, the greater movement potential provided by more
integrated street systems lower risk.
Relative affluence and the number of neighbours has a greater effect than layout type, whether
grid or cul-de-sac.
A Larger number of dwellings per street segment reduces risk in grid, cul-de-sac and mixed-use
areas.
Higher wealth increases safety in flats by decreases it in houses, particularly in low-density cul-
de-sacs.
Dwellings should be arranged linearly on two sides of the street in larger residential blocks that
allow good local movement but that are not over-permeable.

Criticisms of Opportunity Reduction Approaches:

Opportunity reduction approaches are criticised on two main grounds – their image and the
possibility of displacement.

1. Image: Use of opportunity reduction techniques has often raised concerns about the image
presented and the ambience of the resulting environment e.g. resulted in the emergence of
highly defensive urbanisms.
2. Displacement: By restricting opportunities for crime in one location simply redistributes it.
Displacement takes different forms:

Geographical displacement- the crime is moved from one location to another.

Temporal displacement – the crime is moved from one time to another.
Target displacement – the crime is moved from one target to another.
Tactical displacement – one method of crime is substituted for another.
Crime type displacement – one kind of crime is substituted for another.

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CONTROLLING SPACE: ACCESS AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION-

While by definition, the public realm should be accessible to all, some environments- intentionally
or unintentionally- are exclusionary and are less accessible to certain sections of society. If access
control and exclusion are practised explicitly and widely, the public realm’s publicness is
compromised.

Lynch and Carr (1979) identi ed four key public space management tasks:

Distinguishing between ‘harmful’ and ‘harmless’ activities – controlling the former without
constraining the latter.
Increasing the general tolerance towards free use, while stabilising a broad consensus of what is
permissible.
Separating – in time and space – the activities of groups with a low tolerance for each other.
Providing ‘marginal spaces’ where extremely free behaviour can go with little damage.

Exclusion can be considered in terms of the following:

1. Excluding conducts: Managing public space can be discussed in terms of preventing or

excluding certain undesirable social behaviours. ‘Exclusion Zones’- zones designed to be free of
some undesirable social characteristics, for example, smoke-free zones, campaign and politics-
free zones, vehicle-free zones, skateboard-free zones, mobile/cellphone-free zones, alcohol-free
zones etc.
2. Exclusion through design: Includes physical exclusion being the inability to access or use the
environment, regardless of whether or not it can be seen into.
Economic access, a form of direct exclusion can be practised by
charging an entry fee. Exclusion through design is typically a
passive means of exclusion.

Excluding people: These kind of exclusions are more active

and prevent the entry of certain individuals or social groups. They include exclusion on the
grounds of conduct (behaviour over which people have a choice) as well as on the grounds of
status (factors over which people have no choice- skin colour, gender, age, etc.)

The ‘Policing’ of Public Space:

Managing and ‘policing’ public space commonly involve more than just the public police. Policing
needs to be considered in terms of ‘social control’ and in terms of public and private police.

Jones & Newburn (2002: 139) distinguished different types or levels of social control:

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Primary (formal) social controls – these are direct and are exerted by those for whom crime
prevention, peacekeeping, and investigators and related policing activities are a primary and
defining part of their role.
Secondary (informal) social controls – these are more indirect and are exerted by those for
whom social control activities are an important secondary aspect in their role.
Tertiary (informal) social control – these are also indirect and are those exerted by
‘intermediate’ groups within local communities.

EQUITABLE ENVIRONMENT:
If urban design is about making better places for people, then the ‘people’ referred to are all the
potential users of the built environment – old/young, rich/poor, male/female, those able-bodied
and those with disabilities, the ethnic majority and ethnic minorities.

Disability, Ageing and Exclusion:

For many – the disabled, the elderly, those with young children in
pushchairs, pregnant women, etc, various physical barriers prevent
them from using the public realm.

The US-based Centre for Universal Design defined the principles of

universal design as follows:

Equitable – the design should be usable by people with diverse abilities and should appeal to all
users
Flexible – the design should cater for a wide range of individual preferences and abilities.
Simple and intuitive – use of the design should be easy to understand, regardless of experience,
knowledge, language skills or current concentration level.
Perceptible – the design communicates necessary information effectively to the user, regardless
of ambient condition or the user’s sensory abilities.
Tolerance for error – the design minimises hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental
of unintended actions.
Low physical effort – the design can be used efficiently and comfortably with a minimum of
fatigue.
Size and space for approach use – appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach,
manipulation and use, regardless of the user’s body size, posture or mobility.

Burton & Mitchell (2006) demonstrated a range of design features and helping to deliver six design
attributes:

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Familiarity – streets that are recognisable, with long-established forms and features and designs
that are familiar to older people.
Legibility – streets that help older people to understand where they are and to identify which
way they need to go.
Distinctiveness – streets that reflect local character in their built form and uses and thereby give
a clear image of the place.
Accessibility – streets that enable older people to reach, enter, use and walk around places they
need or wish to visit, regardless of any physical, sensory or mental impairment.
Comfort – streets that enable people to visit places of their choice without physical or mental
discomposure and to enjoy being out of the house.
Safety – streets that enable people to use, enjoy, and move around the outside environment
without fear of tripping or falling, being run over or being attacked.

Mobility, Wealth and Exclusion:

Mobility can also be considered in terms of car-based and non-car-based accessibility. Groups with
low mobility also tend to have low accessibility.

Automobility is a ‘source of freedom’, whose flexibility enables car drivers to travel at speed at any
time in any direction. Cars also provide a means of security. Lower income groups, devoid of the
luxury of owning a car, rely on public transport. The poorest people tending to live in the least safe
and healthy environments with the greatest likelihood of environmental hazards such as floods and
pollution. Exclusion of such groups is a product of inaccessible facilities, poorly managed parks and
public spaces, dilapidated housing, living in locations with high traffic volumes, and the
disturbance, pollution, noise and potential injury this causes.

Exclusion of the Young:

At many public places, certain groups of people such as the poor, homeless teenagers etc are
excluded on the basis of appearance, e.g. hairstyle etc. They are also excluded because of their
pastimes, e.g. skateboarding, regarded, by some, as ‘anti-social’ because of the conflict it creates
with other groups and due to the damage to street furniture.

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Rather than positively designing for and managing such activities, the more common strategy is to
banish such uses to dedicated spaces and to design or police them out of shared spaces.

Cultural Difference and Public Space:

The Cultural difference should be celebrated rather than alleviated.
As communities have become more ethnically diverse, these
notions of different cultures colliding in the melting pot of public
space can also be extended to how different ethnic groups use
space, and to concerns that these different patterns of use are
inadequately recognised in urban design processes.

In urban design is to be appropriately responsive to the needs of

local populations, it is critical to understand the diversity of views
and perspectives among minority groups as well as among the
majority population – though, for a range of religious and cultural reasons, some minority groups
are particularly hard to engage in participatory processes.

Certain spaces provided opportunities for dissimilar people to mix:

Neighbourhood and semi-domestic spaces, such as shared forecourts, school lobby etc.
Neighbourhood parks where young people interacts.
Local markets encouraged casual encounters between who would otherwise not come into
contact.

Gender Perspectives:
It has been observed that in most of the environmental designs – intentionally or unintentionally-
women are excluded. Women make up over half the population and have a very different lifestyle
and patterns of movement to men. Many women spend a greater portion of their time in and
around the home environment, they take shorter cross-town rather than into- centre trips.

Women frequently experience inconvenience and obstruction in the designed environment, inadequate
solutions are imposed on them and they encounter a widespread lack of knowledge and understanding
among professionals about how they use space.

(Cavanagh 1998: 169-1)

An example of gender blindness is that there is a general under-provision of female public toilets
.whereas women, who for biological reasons need to use toilets more often and for a longer time.

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Inclusive Design:

Keates & Clarkson argue that, whatever the product, inclusive design is not a niche activity, nor
one addressing ‘special needs’, instead, it is about ensuring design outcomes are of greatest value
to the widest possible range of users.

By its very nature, good design is inclusive and is the responsibility of all built environment
professionals, as well as land and property owners. Inclusive design thus aims to:

Place people at the heart of the design process.

Acknowledge diversity and difference.
Offer choice where a single design solution cannot accommodate all users.
Provide for flexibility in use.
Create environments that are enjoyable to use for everyone.

CONCLUSION:
More than any other dimension, urban design’s social dimension raises a host of issues concerning
values and difficult choices regarding the effects of urban design decisions on different individuals
and groups in society. While the aim should e to create an accessible, safe and secure, equitable
public realm for all, economic and social trends can make his increasingly difficult to deliver
requiring urban designers to consider their values and their actions in designing and creating
public spaces.

This is a Summary of the Dimensions of Urban Design from the Book “PUBLIC PLACES-
URBAN SPACES“ by Matthew Carmona, Tim Heath, Taner Oc and Steven Tiesdell, Architectural
Press

Arnav Saikia

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