Fear and the Urban Realm

FEAR AND THE URBAN REALM Fear, yet another response of the human psyche, has terrifically manifested over the ages from an instinct that aided the survival of the entire race, to a global phenomenon gripping the users of the public domain, and endangering their sense of security.

With the modern age set in, cities are booming and bustling with life than never before. Ironically, the negative side of the development is also being increasingly felt, with the plummeting crime scenes and anti-social activities in the urban realm. One such city is Madurai, which is located in the southern part of India. Being a settlement with a rich historical background aging unto two millennia, Madurai draws tourists from all parts of the world owing to the famous Meenakshi Amman temple, it holds at its heart. Located on the banks of river Vaigai, the ancient city evolved around the temple. After the British rule in India, the modern city developed rapidly around the core city, sprawling in all directions. The city now presents a juxtaposition of its ancient and modern self at every twist and turn, with people transcending varied cultures and economic strata, who experience all attributes of the city life, including the fear it imposes. Although efforts are being made politically and judicially to bring down the figures, the psychological sense of security being restored in the citizens, is still in question. Nevertheless, good urban design can cater to this, if only the anatomy of urban fear could be unveiled. Fear, being a highly intangible human emotion, couldn’t be tracked down individually but on a social scale, common factors could be identified and set right. For this purpose, two mixed-use developments containing both commercial and residential streets of distinct characteristics are identified in Madurai – one being Town Hall road and its neighbourhood from the organically evolved heritage core city and the other being Anna Nagar 80 feet road and its neighbourhood, a planned development within the modern city.

FIGURE 1 MAP OF MADURAI

FACTORIZING FEAR If fear is being inflicted by the urban environment, it is obvious that its factors should also be located within the environment itself. These factors need to be identified and mathematically evaluated, to objectify and model fear. For this reason, the nature of each factor needs to be carefully documented. Each factor is unique. Some are dominant, while some stay submissive. Some remain constant, while others vary with time, like the changing time of the day or the day of the week. Also some factors evoke the same response from all users while others perform differently among people of different sexes and age groups. These need to be ascertained through observation and reviews, to further process them.

TO SEE AND TO BE SEEN Visibility is often associated with the feeling of safety. It is of the general opinion that the more one can see, the more one tends to feel safe. This is better advanced by the ‘Prospect refuge theory’ stated by Appleton.

Prospect-refuge theory refers to the primitive and adaptive behaviour still prevalent in human beings, namely, “to see without being seen”.

This theory offers two factors of relevance to the study – Prospect and Refuge. Prospect decides how far ahead and how wide one can view from a point on the street. Refuge denotes the potential hiding places there are from which attackers can jump. These factors do not vary with time and they mostly evoke the same response from all users.

However, indigenous reviews revealed that, just as being able to see, being seen is also quite important. It is believed that regions which healthy people activity are relatively safer. The factor of surveillance is seen to play its part here. Surveillance can come from a variety of sources. Policemen patrolling the region and guards appointed for security, account to formal surveillance. On the other hand, the passers-by provide informal surveillance. In addition to them, the surrounding buildings too contribute a great deal to the informal surveillance factor. It is the reason why commercial lanes are felt safer in India. To understand this factor of buildings-offering-surveillance better, their facades are classified into four classes based on their “eyes on the street”. Small shops with open facades that offer the shopkeeper direct physical and visual access onto the street comprise Class I since they escalate the sense of security. Residences without compound walls, that begin directly from the street line form Class II since their inhabitants have ample access to the street if a mishap should occur. Class III consists of the showrooms and retail shops that don’t have direct physical access but maintain moderate visual surveillance on the streets. Compounded residences that remain visually and physically detached from the streetscape are included in the Class IV since they don’t contribute much to the sense of security in the streets. However, surveillance factor varies with time just as people activity and buildings’ functioning change. Due to this, a street that is safe on weekdays, turns unsafe on weekends. Hence, the streets need to be studied at multiple time periods to understand these variations. Anyway, not all kinds of surveillance prove beneficial. For instance, a girl walking alone doesn’t feel comfortable when being surveilled by a group of young men. Hence, informal surveillance is seen to vary with the individual differences of the users. Therefore, the many kinds of people groups need to be surveyed among the locals, to be rated.

IMPACT OF STREET ELEMENTS The physical environment that composes the street setting is greatly responsible for urban safety. When the surrounding environment seems pleasing and amiable, a user feels safe, and inversely, when the setting looks eerie or ill-maintained, the user feels uncomfortable. This is propagated by the theory of ‘Broken Windows’ devised by Wilson and Kelling as follows: "Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps squatters may light fires inside. Or consider a

sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars."

Hence, the status of the street elements are essential in determining the street’s safety. On site observation, the elements that composed the regions studied were identified to be the surrounding buildings, roads, pavements, sewers, manholes, trash cans and dumps, vegetation and street lights. Since vehicular traffic congestion occurred in almost all streets considered, it is also considered part of the street setting. The influence of these factors varies with the nature of the user. Hence these also, were presented for survey among the locals.

FIGURE 2 INDIGENOUS SURVEY

From the surveys, it was evident that zones surveilled by women groups of any age were considered safe. Hence they made Class I. Surveillance by middle aged and older men composed Class II, while that by young men were pushed to Class III by most women responses, citing possible eve-teasing or harassment as reasons. However, almost all users rated drunk men negative for the social disturbance they create, thereby grouping them under Class IV. All modes of traffic and the resulting congestion were graded into Classes III and IV, since they impeded movement. But speeding vehicles were rated very perilous, placing them in Class V. As for the street elements, buildings in demolished or unused states were mostly rated neutral since the people of India have grown tolerant to ill-maintained surrounding conditions. Still, buildings like bars were scored into Class V owing to the havoc they create in the neighbourhood. Trashcans and dumps, open sewers, dense vegetation and pits on the road were rated Class IV as they might cause accidents and detest. Comparatively, broken pavements and uncovered manholes fared worse, for the chances of people getting hurt, even fatally, were higher. Finally, regions devoid of proper street lighting were ranked the most unsafe, naturally, categorising them into Class V.

MODELLING FEAR The factors thus arrived have to be scored all along the public domain in the region studied, to model fear. For this purpose, the public domain is gridded with equidistant pedestrian points, for each of which, an isovist is constructed. Isovist is the volume of space visible from a point. All factors that lie within an isovist of a point contribute scores to the Street Environment Index (SEI) value of that point in relation to the proximity to it. That is, closer the factor is to the point, more is its effect, and vice versa. Since all factors are perceived visually, this method of using isovists proves appropriate. The SEI values, when colour-coded and represented in the map of the region, help arrive at the Fear model of the zone.

FIGURE 3 TOWN HALL ROAD - FEAR MAP

The model of Town Hall road and its surroundings reveals major green patches, indicating that most parts of the region are safe. Reviews and testimonies gathered regarding the safety of this region validate these results. This area, located within the core city, is known for the many electronic shops it holds. Also, this is the shortest route connecting the temple with the major transit points. Hence this region is always active with local people intending to buy goods and tourists in pursuit of the temple. This people activity is the major reason for such high scores of safety.

FIGURE 4 ANNA NAGAR 80 FEET ROAD - FEAR MAP

On the contrary, the planned development around Anna Nagar 80 feet road is seen to have fared low on the safety scales. This is, again, validated by the reviews of the locals. This neighbourhood is rather filled with either

people living within their own walls or people who commute. The street life, but for some main junctions, is not quite rich. This lack of people activity and the impending surveillance has cost the region of its safety.

COMPARING AND CONCLUDING The factors of people activity and surveillance have widely been stated as reasons for the sense of safety in these regions. More than just improving the safety indices, these factors also have their influence on the other factors such as prospect-refuge and street elements.

To better illustrate this, the narrow residential lanes in the neighbourhood of Town Hall road are considered.

Although they have very low prospect values, they are seen to be marked safe, since they have high levels of surveillance. On the other hand, the cardinal 80 feet road in Anna Nagar has lower safety scores even though it possesses high prospect values. This is due to the fact that the people activity on most areas along the road except near its junctions is less. Thus, surveillance and people activity are seen to outweigh the effect of the prospect factor. Similarly, the streets with bars in the Town Hall road region are marked relatively safer owing to the healthy people groups that outnumber the drunk men. Whereas in Anna Nagar, the street with a bar is ranked very low by reviews because of its unhealthy people groups. Though the street has people who pass by, not much of them stay long enough to witness the happenings on the street and curtail mayhem. This denotes the effect of surveillance on the faulty street elements.

FIGURE 5 TOWN HALL ROAD - PEOPLE ACTIVITY

Healthy surveillance and people activity, in the Indian context, help maintain urban safety. This is seen to be encouraged by streets with open commercial shops and markets by enhancing the retention period of people on streets. Hence, planning such features along the urban fabric, that promote beneficial surveillance could help solve the fear issue in Madurai. Similarly, by employing these strategies, the factors that fuel fear in any city can be identified and evaluated, to mitigate the notoriously terrific phenomenon of urban fear.