Frontline
Safe Cities by 2050, about 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in towns and cities.
By Jane Embury Wrightstyle
4 | Australian Security Magazine
W
e increasingly live and work in them. But how safe are our cities, and what does the future hold for them and for us? Jane Embury, of Wrightstyle the company’s marketing director, discusses our growing love affair with cities, and the new kinds of threat they face. According to the UN, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and, by 2050, about 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in towns and cities. The current level of urbanisation ranges from 82% of the population in North America to 40% in Africa, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, in their Safe Cities Index 2015. Every day, over 187,000 people become city dwellers, posing enormous challenges to basic infrastructure such as water, sanitation and transport. The urban trend reflects both population and economic growth. In 1950, New York was the world’s first megacity, defined as having a population of more than 10 million people. Now there are more than 20 megacities and, by 2025, New York is likely to have dropped to sixth on the list – behind Tokyo, Delhi, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Mexico City. It’s an urban trend that, the Economist notes, is being repeated the world over. For example Lagos, the most populous city in Nigeria, is expected to double in size over the next 15 years. However, it’s not a trend that can be applied to every city, as the UN’s latest World Urbanisation Prospects study underlines. For example, Seoul, the capital of South Korea, has shrunk by 800,000 since 1990. There are also wide country-by-country variations. Bahrain and Australia have urbanisation rates of well over 80%, while Bangladesh has a low rate of 34.3% and
Cambodia 20.7%. However, the Economist report debunks the myth that population size and public safety are inexorably linked. New York, which had a homicide rate of 2,245 in 1990 – six murders a day – had a homicide rate of 335 in 2013, while piling in an addition one million inhabitants. But personal safety is only just one aspect of what makes a city “safe.” The Economist Intelligence Unit Safe Cities Index summaries the primary issues as being digital security, health security, infrastructure safety and personal safety. Stitching the Index’s main findings together, the world’s most populous city, Tokyo, is also the safest – despite being in an earthquake zone. Unsurprisingly, cities in the developed world tend to be “safer” with those in the developing world less “safe.” That said, wealth is no guarantee of urban safety. Four out of five cities on the Index in the Middle East, while considered high income, do not feature in the top half of the Index. US cities come out well in digital security, with New York leading the way. Underlining the importance of technology, the report notes that the smartest cities use data to monitor the real world – for example, helping to prevent crime or the spread of disease. In North America, Toronto and New York come out top; in Europe, Stockholm and Amsterdam; in Asia, Tokyo and Singapore; and in the Middle East, Abu Dhabi and Doha. Baghdad is ranked as the most risky city in the world. Two other Iraqi cities, Mosul and Ramadi, are second and third. Most cities classed as being at “extreme risk” are in the Middle East. However, it’s not enough simply to live in a statistically safe place. What’s important is how safe we actually feel