Hope without surrender

Screen pervasiveness in daily life
Photo: Creative Commons by JuanMA from Pexels 

By Gregory Saville

It was 2005, and we were strolling along Charlotte’s tree-lined sidewalks in North Carolina, streetcars clinking in the background as we weighed dinner options at the end of a long workday. My work colleagues had lived in the city for years. I offered them a challenge: Find a restaurant without a television screen! 

They mulled what seemed like an apparently simple task. Surely somewhere downtown in this city of over 2 million, there must be one restaurant that had no TV screens facing diners? 

They rhymed off restaurant after restaurant, each one quickly rejected into the trash bin of screen-dominated dining rooms. After about a dozen failed attempts, we walked into a few nearby restaurants. Nada.

“Look,” I said, “it should be simple”. 

It wasn’t. 

In the end, they dragged me to a local sports tavern so they could watch the game on the numerous TV screens as we ate. Sigh! 

Tech, without surrender.

Years later, it happened again. I was in a taxi in Mexico City and this time the tech was not TV screens. It was far more pervasive. Cellphones! Everywhere I went in that city it was the same. Blank faces staring down at tiny screens in their hands. 

During a subway trip in Toronto last year I counted fifty people, about 70% of everyone in my visual field, staring zombie-like at their cell phones (eventually, I was one of them). 

This week, debates fill our local school board newsletter on what to do with kids and their cells. Police academies instructors recently told me they solve it the simple way by banning cell phones. 

I ask incredulously, “Recruits are not able to control their cell phone usage in class?”

LUDDITE-RESISTENT 

I am no luddite to technology. A year ago, I tested augmented reality and loved it. I recently toured a police drone control center. Like many, I use spell checkers, automated proofreading, and chatbots to clean up text (but never to write it). Something in my primal brain lights up in the presence of new tech, yet something equally deep remains unsettled by the speed and direction of its growth.

The first Blackberry smartphone emerged in 1999 and the first iPhone in 2007. In just 17 years, our species was programmed to bring small slabs of plastic, silicon, lithium, and metal to our faces hundreds of times a day. Pervasive restaurant TV screens collapsed into tiny TVs in our hand. This is not a new phenomenon. I have previously blogged about the internet migration into banks and restaurants.

 

Cellphone addiction is worldwide 
Photo: N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Now comes artificial intelligence, extending that conditioning beyond the screen. Psychologists are increasingly worried about a lack of human interaction, AI addiction and higher levels of loneliness. 

THE PROPHET SPEAKS 

This was all foretold in the 1960s by Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian philosopher of media, who warned that technology reshapes how people think long before it changes what they think. McLuhan told us that in future, the worst threats will not come from propaganda. The real threat emerges from a much more subtle quarter - technology itself! He called this idea, “the medium is the message” (a term now expanded into “the algorithm is the message”).

McLuhan did not warn us to watch for the manipulators of technology to change our beliefs. He said that the technology changes the conditions under which believes are formed. When you can change how beliefs are formed, there is no need to censor through propaganda. 

He predicted that electronic media would undermine traditional authorities and lead to a rise in conspiracy stories, exactly what we see today. Consider the rise of influencers, those who confuse volume with insight, the same people who ignore expertise. 

Photo of McLuhan and Powers' Global Village

McLuhan predicted that control emerges not from censorship, but from bombarding people with so much information they could not possibly make sense of it. Consider the 24-hour news cycles in which exclusive stories never end or the endless streams of Facebook or Instagram posts.

McLuhan cautioned that a global village would be created by electronic media. He predicted it would not lead to harmony, but to more tribalism. Instead of bringing people together, constant global connectivity would amplify cultural, racial, and national divisions. Consider today’s culture wars, cancel culture, and group identity-based conflict, all exacerbated by social media.

WELCOME TO 2026

Later this year we will publish our new book, Hope Rises, on SafeGrowth from University of Toronto Press (the same university where McLuhan taught). It does not fully answer our digital tech smothering, but it does offer a different story about a very non-global, village – we call it the NUV (neighborhood urban village). 

Must new technologies dominate every part of our lives?

We describe pockets of this new future from cities all over the world, pockets where we have worked and showcase in this blog, such as adaptive re-use community marketplaces, Third Place designs, design for dignified affordability, and the power of reimagined neighborhoods. 

The key, we have learned, is not to remove tech but rather to refashion it and create a more balanced, transparent tech. Sooner or later, people will tire of the oppressive digital smothering in so much of our lives. People crave people, the face-to-face, the laughter, the human-energy-in-the-room. We see this emerging, gradually, everywhere.

One antidote might be the growth of Third Places, a trend that is much more than cafes or taverns. Third Places can be multi-purposed centers where old and young meet, green spaces with well-placed parks and benches or trans-species planning with dog parks for pro-social activities.

What we argue is simple: the answer is not longing for a dead past, but renewal into the future. It may sound like magic or nostalgic romance, but rethinking neighborhood life and community design offers something that tech-in-our-ear never can: places where visions are shared and where ideas grow, not faster, but deeper. 

May the months ahead bring some of this hope into your life. Hope without surrender.

Happy New Year!

After the light fades - Urban lighting as social infrastructure

Lighting influences safety and feelings of safety

by Mateja Mihinjac

It’s that time of year again. Darkness lingers until nearly 7:30 a.m. and settles again just after 4 p.m. Coupled with weeks of fog that barely lifts, the city can feel like it’s sealed under a grey, misty dome. Echoes of occasional firecrackers in the distance, as we approach the festive season, further amplify feelings of unease.

We’ve written before about how lighting, and sometimes the absence of it, shapes how people experience safety, such as situations where turning lights off can actually reduce risk. This season brings those questions back into sharp focus.

On one of those foggy late mornings, I ran into an elderly man I often see during my dog walks. He told me he now makes sure to take his daily walk while it’s still light. Night walks, especially when combined with fog and poor lighting, make him uncomfortable.

It was a simple comment, but I understood immediately what he meant, shaped by years of working with how people experience safety in public space. And yet, surprisingly, discussions about urban lighting in my city are rare.

 

Sherlock Holmes and Watson's path to 221B Baker Street, London. Lighting, night spaces, and fog play a powerful role in our imagination.

ANXIETY ABOUT THE UNKNOWN

From CPTED and SafeGrowth research, we know that nighttime environments differ fundamentally from daytime ones, both physically and socially. This is precisely why nighttime site visits and safety audits are essential. What feels manageable by day can feel uncertain or threatening after dark, especially when lighting is inadequate, and activity levels drop.

Research consistently shows that feeling safe and comfortable matters. Negative perceptions of safety influence how people use public space and are linked to poorer mental health outcomes, particularly among those experiencing high levels of fear.

Importantly, fear is often highly localised. My own field research on perceptions of safety in downtown Saskatoon showed that immediate, micro-spatial context matters more than broad neighbourhood reputation. Traditional social science surveys ask questions such as “Do you feel safe walking alone at night in your neighbourhood?” 

That fails to capture where fear concentrates. The Saskatoon study zoomed in with more detail and focus. Results were featured in the 2019 Saskatoon Planning publication.

The Sylvia Hotel in Vancouver has figured how to light outdoor paths
in beautiful and artistic ways 

Studies that focus on very small areas, sometimes just a block around someone’s home, show that fear is strongly shaped by what people see and experience nearby. Five cues in particular signal trouble: 

• signs of disorder, 
• poor upkeep, 
• obstructed sightlines, 
• entrapment spots, and 
• poor nighttime visibility.

Even when actual crime rates are low, these environmental cues can amplify anxiety.

The social life of a place matters as much as its physical form. Areas with little activity and visible neglect often feel unsafe, while everyday presence –  people walking, talking, passing through – can offset even imperfect design.

A sense of community doesn’t emerge on its own. It depends on spaces that invite people to be there. And this is where lighting becomes critical.

 

Environmental conditions like snow or fog can help,
or hinder, lighting effects - how about this example?

A SOCIAL ANGLE WITH LUCI

The social environment matters just as much as the physical one. Sparse activity and visible social incivilities heighten fear, while the presence of others can offset poor design. In some cases, social factors outweigh defensive physical measures entirely. 

A sense of community, collective efficacy, and everyday social presence can reduce fear, but only if the environment supports people being there in the first place. And this is where lighting becomes critical.

I recently came across LUCI – Lighting Urban Community International – an international network of cities focused on urban lighting as a tool for sustainable development, cultural and economic life, social cohesion, and quality of life.

LUCI challenges the idea that lighting is merely a technical issue. Instead, it frames lighting as a public health, social, and equity concern. Their research highlights how lighting influences sleep, mobility, safety, social interaction, and wellbeing, especially for vulnerable populations such as older adults. 

Poorly designed lighting can isolate people, discouraging them from going out at night, thereby shrinking their world. Thoughtful lighting, by contrast, supports confidence and connection.

Indirect window lighting and decorative lights can have a powerful impact

LUCI’s work highlights how urban lighting sits at the crossroads of many everyday goals that shape quality of life. It influences who feels included, how comfortably people move through a place, and whether streets and pathways feel legible and welcoming after dark. Lighting affects safety and natural surveillance, but also subtler things like social connection and the confidence to linger rather than hurry through.

It also carries environmental and economic weight. Decisions about lighting shape energy use, light pollution, and the character of nighttime activity in local economies. Just as importantly, lighting contributes to public health and overall wellbeing by setting the tone and ambience of public spaces.

Seen this way, lighting is not simply about preventing crime. It is about enabling life after dark and functioning as a form of social infrastructure, especially in places and seasons where daylight is scarce.

 

Night life in the city can be social, fun and safe - proper lighting is the key

RECLAIMING THE NIGHTS

Making lighting part of urban planning means more than installing brighter fixtures and replacing sodium with LED lamps. It requires engaging communities and integrating lighting into broader governance and design decisions. 

Socio-demographic analysis, co-design, and community-driven approaches are essential if lighting is to support wellbeing rather than undermine it. Such co-governance is necessary in SafeGrowth and in all the questions that affect the quality of life of residents.

That elderly man adjusting his walking routine wasn’t responding to crime statistics. He was responding to uncertainty that the darkness and the fog instilled in him. He was responding to a nighttime environment that no longer felt legible or welcoming. It had changed his world.

When cities get lighting right, they don’t just reduce fear. They give people their evenings back.

The ripple effect begins here - the 2026 Canada/US CPTED Conference

Larry Leach working on neighbourhood activities with the 12CSI organization in Calgary. Larry is a member of the 2026 Canada/US CPTED Conference planning team. 

by Larry Leach

Recently, we have started putting together an exciting new conference – the 2nd Annual Conference for the US/Canada chapters of the International CPTED Association. It will be on October 2-4, 2026, in my hometown of Calgary, Alberta. I am working alongside the great folks who ran the 2025 conference in Palm Springs, California, and it has been equal parts exciting and a fantastic learning experience. 

With a little under a year to go, we have many details ironed out and ready. I expect to learn and accomplish so much more working with this inspiring group comprising members of the joint Canada/U.S. CPTED team. I am a small cog in an impressive wheel. 

More than that, we have plans for my organization, Calgary's 12 Community Safety Initiative (12CSI), to attract staff and practicum students to this conference. It will be an ideal opportunity to make us a better organization. 

My attendance at other conferences allows me to learn the best practices and it offers an opportunity to network and promote the conference. The feelings that some of the conference delegate experience before and after the conference will carry forward and lead to future opportunities for 12CSI and others. This is a win-win opportunity.

Is this a shameless plug for the conference? Admittedly, it is a nice byproduct! My involvement, and the time I spend with like-minded people, adds a spring to my step, and it makes me a better servant to our organization here in Calgary. That is my main goal. 

 

Most assuredly, it is a feather in the cap of our small local organization to have me involved on the conference planning team. And if you're of a certain age, you may remember the commercial: “I told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on”. That sentiment really speaks to the magic of a good discussion, a good TED Talk, or conference networking and planning like this. You never know the ripple effect that it may have far beyond what you imagine. That’s exciting!

The prize at the end of the rainbow? First, the topics we’ll be discussing at this conference may spark the very project your community is ready for. Second, you will learn how to launch meaningful projects by talking with experts from across the world. Third, speakers will come from all walks of life and from many different professions – community organizers, police, criminologists, association leaders, planners, architects, and many others. 

Hilton Garden Inn overlooking downtown Calgary
- site of the 2026 CPTED Conference

Take a look where you live. Are there problems that have lingered too long? Are there opportunities to make things better that no one seems willing to act on? Do you and your neighbours want a real say in what happens, rather than waiting for government or big business to decide for you?

TURNING CONFERENCE IDEAS INTO ACTION 

If you don’t shape your community, someone else will, and you may not like the outcome.

A community project does more than build something physical. It educates, inspires, and sends a clear signal that people care. It becomes a symbol of who you are together. Building a sense of community, cutting crime and improving livability are all important goals. Whether it’s a curb extension to calm traffic, a basketball court, a shared garden, or a new community hall, the specific project matters less than the act of starting.

You may not raise all the money you hoped for. The final result may look different than you imagined. It may take longer than planned. But the process, the energy, the collaboration, and the shared purpose - all these can leave a legacy that lasts for years, even decades. It’s that first effort that inspires the next generation to take it further and make it better.

So what should you do? 

Come to the conference. Meet us and share ideas. Learn what success looks like. Mostly...just start! 

Right now.

The return of the Community Marketplace

The Stanley Marketplace in Aurora, east of Denver - adaptive reuse of commercial malls

by Gregory Saville

Adaptive-Reuse Community Marketplace:
A retail and cultural hub created by repurposing a former industrial, commercial, or civic structure into a multi-vendor market space. It functions as the modern Third-Places within revitalized buildings. 

It was the 1990s and we were sitting in an architect’s drafting room in Vancouver, pointing to some of our CPTED recommendations on a new suburban shopping mall south of the city. My business partner, Paul Wong, and I had spent weeks examining designs for the walkways, parking lots, store location placement, and other opportune crime areas. 

We believed this sprawling regional shopping mall might be redesigned with CPTED principles to make it safer. Paul had already co-published some of the first environmental criminology research with Pat and Paul Brantingham on the crime-causing character of shopping malls.

We had done our homework. Our recommendations were solid. We had the data to prove it. We were confident!

Then the figurative bomb exploded. 

“Nope,” said the architect hired to redevelop the property. 

He continued: “The property owners are going another direction. The suburban shopping mall concept is dying. There is a new kid in town. The Big Box store!”

“What?” I exclaimed. “What the hell is a Big Box store? That is a stupid idea. It will never take hold!”

Famous last words!

The Stanley Marketplace signals a traditional kind of community experience making a comeback

The emergence of the Big Box store changed everything. The saturation and decline destiny of the suburban shopping mall was set. By the 1990s, shopping malls began to fade. Some have termed the decline of malls as the retail apocalypse.

From a crime perspective, Big Boxes were not much better. They triggered more sprawl, monoculture and homogenization of land uses. They reduced public space walkability and drained life from local downtowns. Many small neighborhood stores closed. 

Twenty years later, especially following the 2008 recession, the pattern changed again. E-commerce expanded and consumer demand for large format buildings weakened. Today it is the Big Box apocalypse. Vacancies are rising and many appear to be following the same downward path of their suburban cousins. 

SHARED SPACES AND PUBLIC LIFE

Consumer behavior and retail land uses are changing demand. People still visit Box Stores for bargains, but many now shop online with home delivery. More people stay home and work digitally, yet many still want places where they can gather in safe, enjoyable communal settings.

Last week I visited the latest reincarnation of the mall. The Stanley Marketplace in Aurora, just east of Denver. It is one of a growing list of mixed-use, indoor/outdoor market-places called adaptive-reuse community marketplaces. 

The Stanley Marketplace opened in 2016 inside a former 1954 aircraft-parts factory. The building was repurposed into a 140,000 square foot (13,006.4 m² ) mixed-use marketplace that now hosts over fifty independent businesses.

Adaptive-reuse is an architectural strategy to repurpose older buildings, cut development waste, reduce carbon levels, and retain local history. It appears in residential buildings, office blocks, and increasingly in commercial markets.

Adaptive-reuse community marketplaces are a form of walkable, community-centered retail. They are human-scale, lively, and shaped more by local entrepreneurs than national chains. They return to the kind of economic and social embeddedness that suburban malls once promised but rarely achieved. 

Seattle's Pike Place Market - a popular adaptive reuse market, repurposed and saved from demolition - photo AlexReynolds at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wiki Commons

Early versions have existed for a long time, such as Pike Place Market in Seattle (1907) and the Fremantle Markets south of Perth, Australia (1897). Modern examples are appearing across many cities, including the Anaheim Packing House in California (2014), the Broadway Market in Baltimore near the harbor (2019), and Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market in its revitalized nineteenth-century warehouse district (mid-2000s).

The Stanley Marketplace feels like an old-style enclosed market. It avoids the sterile, marble and glass aesthetic in favor of wood, plants, smaller commercial units, and comfortable seating.  It has plentiful seating and it encourages people to linger, but in such a way that provides natural surveillance and territorial reinforcement to discourage anti-social behavior. It has abundant spaces for larger families to sit and play.

Metro Denver has numerous other adaptive-reuse markets across the city. It is gathering steam. 

Toronto's St. Lawrence market - reuse of a Victorian era industrial building - photo Canmenwalker, CC BY 4.0 via Wiki Commons

WHAT COMES NEXT?

Walking through the Stanley Marketplace felt like entering a place that remembered something essential about city life. People stayed longer, families wandered, and strangers shared tables. The building felt alive in a way many modern commercial districts do not. It brought activity to the street and created comfortable, visible spaces for local entrepreneurs. 

In SafeGrowth we see places like this as emerging community anchors. They grow from the way people use them and they show how neighborhood life strengthens when residents have shared places near their homes. These early projects suggest how future neighborhood hubs might form. They remind us that community centers can return when we design spaces that support connection and belonging.

 

No pooping in my back yard - Canine NIMBYism?

The excluded species from our planning

by Mateja Mihinjac

In our SafeGrowth work, we are constantly defining the most real and human moments of neighbourhood life. Jane Jacobs once advised that we should carefully watch the sidewalk ballet that is the street and watch the natural rhythms that make neighbourhoods work. In today’s world, in the best cities, that world involves our dogs! 

We live in an age obsessed with dogs – they star in adverts, fill social media feeds, and have their own cafés and birthday parties. Yet, in real life, restrictions are often imposed on dogs that communicate they are unwelcome or severely restrict their instinctual behaviour.

On my dog walks, I often observe tiny squares of grass, empty traffic islands, and unused patches of green in urban environments that are full of signs “No Dogs”, “Keep Dogs on Leash”, or the ever-polite “Dog-Free Zone.” The message is: dogs are welcome… but not here. Occasionally, during my walks, I also experience judgmental stares when my dog just sniffs the grass. 

Signs of restriction, not permission

Is this curious paradox a form of modern NIMBYism – canine NIMBYism? This paradox is particularly curious when you notice the signs appear in places where no one else seems to go. The grass stays immaculate and unused. 

While many of those patches of grass invite birds, hedgehogs and cats with intentional food leftovers, the grass is not necessarily reserved for another group. The “no dogs” signs are therefore not necessarily about cleanliness but about defining who it is for. It’s about place politics: ownership and subtle exclusion, even when the space might not be private. 

NEW CANINE RESTRICTIONS

With an increasing density of canine companions, new dog parks now appear as a selling point in neighbourhood (re)developments. Dog parks are ideal for bringing legitimate eyes onto the street — especially in places that might otherwise have no one around to watch. This happens all over the world.

Calgary's East Village development with children's playground, community gardens, dog park, public hiking trails - planning for inclusion and safety

In Calgary, our SafeGrowth planner Anna Brassard worked on the East Village redevelopment years ago, and today that neighbourhood places dog parks beside children’s play areas and community gardens, creating safer, more animated public spaces.

In Slovenia, many cafés and shops now allow smaller dogs inside, letting them accompany their handlers and adding to the natural rhythms of street life.

While dogs are valued in theory, their presence is often controlled or restricted. This has been especially evident over the past years due to increasing numbers of dog ownership. According to one source, 39% of Slovene households have at least one dog, the fifth highest in Europe and above the European average of 25%.

With these numbers, new tensions have also emerged. 

Dog park in Gan Meir, Israel
- photo David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As more canines populate urban areas and green space is becoming increasingly scarce, Slovenia has recently toughened penalties for dogs off-leash and for neglecting to clean after a dog, aiming to promote “responsible dog ownership”. 

Similar stricter punishments have been introduced in the UK, where restrictions on dogs and their dog handlers are enforced through public spaces protection orders.

Such legislative changes reflect the growing impatience with dogs in public space and the anticipated disruption of public disorder, whether real or not.

RECONCILING PUBLIC ORDER & MESSINESS 

Most people prefer order and feel at unease when it gets disrupted. Yet, dogs sniff, run, bark, chase, pee, poop, which brings a "mess" into otherwise tidy urban space - which is not always so tidy! 

Lovas Kiss describes how dog walkers move through space differently than other users who go about their activities. That sometimes creates feelings of unpredictability and discomfort.

Signs of exclusion, not inclusion

This messiness is also what makes streets and neighbourhoods feel alive. A dog changes the rhythm of a neighbourhood. It draws people out, encourages social contact, creates friendly chaos and animates otherwise dead corners. In a Polish city park study, Bogacka also showed that people with dogs are perceived as more trustworthy and they reduce the perception of unsafety compared to other park visitors.

Some studies suggest that public space should therefore reflect the messiness of life, including noise, smells, joy, and occasionally, inconvenience. Public space need not always feel bare and sterile.

TRANS-SPECIES PLANNING - ANTIDOTE TO CANINE NIMBYism

For this reason, urban studies scholars Phil Hubbard and Andrew Brooks talk about the importance of considering how urban planning practices affect all species. For example, gentrification, often considered undesirable, affects animals as well. They may get displaced, excluded, or their behaviour severely restricted because it’s considered “too messy” in the upscaled environment. 

Calgary's East Village - people, dogs, parks, playground, gardens

Urban geographers Julie Urbanik and Mary Morgan similarly note that planning needs to think about how non-human uses and users fit into urban space and consider aspects like fences, off-leash zones, proximity to residences, conflict management, and other aspects.

Thus, to be inclusive and to reduce the potential for conflicting uses, trans-species urban planning practices need to acknowledge the interactions between human and non-human animals. 

In crime prevention, I often criticise when the focus is exclusively on communicating what is prohibited or penalised or not permitted, rather than informing users about the desirable behaviours. If we want to curb canine NIMBYism, we should stop policing dogs and start planning for them by designing spaces that support the behaviours we want and respecting their nature.

AI and crime prevention: Drawing the ethical line

Transmitted electrons, processed signals, algorithmic pattern recognition
- the quiet machinery of our new AI reality

by Gregory Saville

Over the past two years, I’ve written in this space about the risks and promises of artificial intelligence in community safety. In The Pros and Cons of Using AI to Prevent Crime and Stop, Dave, I’m Afraid: The Latest on AI and CPTED, I explored the tension between innovation and oversight. And in Gambling with the Future, I warned that without guardrails, predictive systems could amplify bias faster than any police algorithm before them.

This month, that conversation moves from theory to substance. I am about to release what may be the first field-ready ethical framework for artificial intelligence in CPTED/crime prevention for the International CPTED Association. 

This new AI and CPTED White Paper is the product of research, discussions and interviews as part of the Praxis/Theory CPTED Committee of the ICA. I solicited feedback from CPTED and artificial intelligence specialists from around the world. The result sets out principles for transparency, accountability, and human-centered design in the age of intelligent machines.

The literature review included reading the latest writers on AI, among those
historian Yuval Noah Harari's exceptional book Nexus

Why now? Because AI technology has already arrived: 

• City cameras now run on neural networks that detect “anomalies” using predictive AI. 
• Drone patrols and risk dashboards mine enormous datasets for facial recognition. 
• Planners and urban designers are using generative AI to digitally simulate community planning scenarios, what is called digital twins. 
• Some futurists are envisioning “smart cities” using a concept developed by Mateja and myself called 3rd Generation CPTED   
• The concept of “smart cities”, a city driven by AI algorithms, already poses enormous challenges for crime and CPTED, a point I made at a 2021 Smart City conference presentation in Sweden  

What has not arrived are the ethical guidelines to match that power.

GENERATIVE AND PREDICTIVE AI

During my research I spoke to Professor Emma Pierson, a brilliant AI ethics scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, who reminds us that public debate around AI often drifts into abstraction. She urges policymakers to start with two foundational forms—predictive and generative AI—because nearly every current application stems from one or both. 

Predictive models infer patterns from data; generative models create new content from learned representations. Everything else including robotic, agentive, or hybrid models of AI builds on those foundations.

Drones are not  AI, but there are many crime prevention and policing 

applications where they lend themselves to AI 

That insight shapes this white paper. We focus first on how predictive systems are reshaping surveillance and resource allocation, and how generative tools could soon influence public messaging, architectural design, or even neighborhood storytelling. Each domain carries profound implications for privacy, accountability, and equity.

In crime prevention, ethical AI isn’t about the gadgets. It’s about governance. A predictive dashboard that flags “high-risk” behavior might block or respond to actions of people without community consent. That violates the very democratic principles of CPTED. A generative model that drafts neighborhood improvement plans without residents’ input is just as misguided. The new framework calls for three essential commitments:

• Transparency: every AI-driven decision in urban safety must be explainable to the public it affects.
• Oversight: humans remain accountable for outcomes; algorithms can advise but never decide.
• Co-creation: residents are partners in design, not passive data points in someone else’s experiment.

This isn’t theoretical. The purpose of a white paper is to generate discussion within the ICA and elsewhere. It forms some of the factual background to launch deliberations. ICA members from Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, Australasia, and North America will have an AI framework to examine real-world cases where technology overstepped its reach.

 

The UN is now publishing ethical guidelines of AI usage

The paper describes some case studies, such as an intelligent lighting system that quietly profiled behavior by race and age. In another example, predictive policing software displaced trust in neighborhood problem-solving teams. These examples remind us that the ethics of AI are not a luxury. They are a public-safety necessity.

In a recent podcast with ICA President Macarena Rau Vargas, we discussed how ethical AI could strengthen community resilience.  

When designed within CPTED’s 1st Gen principles of territorial ownership, 2nd Gen principles of community cohesion, and 3rd Gen principles of sustainability and participation, we discover a version of AI that can illuminate, not dominate, public space.

The white paper concludes with a call to action. It challenges practitioners, researchers, and civic leaders to adopt a human-in-the-loop standard. AI can process information, but it cannot define meaning. That responsibility belongs to us. As Professor Pierson reminds us, the goal is not to slow innovation but to anchor it in accountability.

Next year, we will release our new SafeGrowth® book, co-authored by Mateja Mihinjac, Jason Tudor, Carl Bray, and myself. It offers detailed examples of success, candid lessons from failure, and a full chapter on a smart city initiative in Sweden that points toward the future.

After years of urging that crime prevention needs an ethical compass, we finally have both the foundation and the language to chart one. The next step belongs to everyone — planners, designers, police, community members, and policymakers — to draw the ethical line and keep it visible.