A new metric is in town - The Serene City Index

Central Park in Manhattan in the heart of New York City - quiet, green, and tranquil

by Mateja Mihinjac 

Since I got a new puppy a few months ago I have been more attuned to the quality of the surroundings in my living area, especially the noise and cleanliness. Anyone with a puppy knows they get distracted by every unusual sound or scent. This experience has offered a new look at my neighbourhood and made me appreciate serene neighbourhood pockets even more. Serene means a place that is tranquil, calm, and free from disturbance - an important quality in city life. 

We have previously written about the Livability Index. The Happy City Index, and the Sustainable Cities Index are two other popular ratings of selected measurements that rank worldwide cities.

Now a new metric has emerged - the Serene City Index.

Waterway in Ljubljana, Slovenia - water features can slow the pace of life
and provide natural serenity

SERENE CITY INDEX

According to the author of Serene City Index, MoneySuperMarket, this rating was developed to help travellers determine the most and least relaxing destinations to visit. Ratings are based on assembling information from existing databases for 75 cities around the world based on the following criteria: 

• average air quality, 
• artificial light pollution levels, 
• noise pollution, 
• traffic congestion, 
• sunshine hours, 
• overall tidiness, 
• country happiness, 
• green space, and
• the friendliness of locals.

These indicators are not only relevant to visitors but also (and probably more importantly) to residents of a city who live with excess noise, pollution, or limited access to green spaces. 

The scale, speed, and intensity of modern roadways make serenity difficult
- photo courtesy of Pixabay in Pixels

THE SCALE 

One concern with measuring and ranking based on any indices is the scale at which they are collected. In SafeGrowth, we focus on the neighbourhood as the core unit of people’s everyday experience. Ideally, that is where they spend most of their time and, if they perceive their neighbourhood as liveable, they will form attachments and connections to that place and the people within it. This is the very essence of the concept of territoriality in 1st Generation CPTED and social cohesion, in 2nd Generation CPTED.

Thus, as with crime concentrations and liveability levels, serenity may also differ significantly between neighbourhoods within the same city. That could make generalisations to the whole city somewhat misleading. This is an important limitation to keep in mind with the serenity index. 

 

Serenity through easy access to relaxing and clean park amenities

THIRD GENERATION CPTED CONNECTION

In her blog on noise pollution, Tarah already wrote about liveability being more than the absence of fear and crime, which we postulate in our Third Generation CPTED writings.

Noise, like other aspects of our immediate living environment, impacts physical and mental health outcomes. It should not be disregarded. The research we document in Third Generation CPTED suggests they can ultimately also lead to crime issues. 

The Serene City Index incorporates elements within the immediate living environment that may lead to frustration, irritability, anger, or depression. These are the very kinds of psychological factors that demand special consideration in future CPTED research and practice. 

Researchers and practitioners seldom include these factoring into their plans and research. It may be time to reconsider that habit. Further, it is also time to reconsider the scale at which we practice crime prevention and planning when it comes to community building. This is a lesson we learned long ago in SafeGrowth - when it comes to creating safer and more livable environments, it is the neighbourhood scale that matters most. 

The wall and the window - Mystery in space

Reading studies on crime and place I was recently struck by a mystery among environmental criminology researchers who study CPTED, particularly territoriality (the wall) and natural surveillance (the window).

It brought to mind other concept errors in crime and place research, specifically crime generators, permeability, cul de sacs, and the Achilles Heel within routine activity theory. This time the mystery cycles around guardianship.

Here’s the storyline…

Researchers regale the power of natural surveillance to enhance guardianship. Guardianship presumes to increase the risk that offenders will be seen and caught. Natural surveillance has appeal because you can observe whether a space has lighting, sightlines and nearby windows. Because surveillance presumably will produce more preventive action by residents (or reluctance by offenders to show up), you can then measure what happens.

EYES ON THE STREET

Natural surveillance assumes that people who see something out of place will act, thereby providing guardianship. Thus it is “real”. It's an assumption borne out nicely in low-crime, upper income areas but not so much in lower-income, high crime areas where residents are afraid to step outdoors and when they do their presence doesn’t deter anything.

Fences, windows and flowers creating territorial control on a San Diego public walkway 

On the other hand researchers question the power of territoriality to enhance guardianship, mainly because they say territoriality lacks "definitional rigor" and it isn’t “real”. Floral decorations or landscaping…is that it? Maybe it’s access control, walls and gates? Even worse, territoriality varies from place to place. Horrors!

They suggest natural surveillance is preferable to territoriality because it seems more measurable. That’s how they solve the mystery of territoriality. They ignore or downplay it, label it with   definitional problems and claim it isn't "real".

THE SECRET

Historian Howard Zinn warns us about such storylines: “Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often led to accept without much questioning someone else’s version of what that reality is.”

Consider this: If territoriality isn’t real, then how is guardianship any better? And why shouldn’t territoriality vary from place to place?“The real world,” says Zinn, “is infinitely complex and constantly changing.”

Perhaps social science research methods are too simplistic to tell us anything complex? Perhaps it is guardianship that has a definitional problem, especially given territoriality’s much longer provenance.

What provenance? Consider Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of Great American Cities, Robert Ardry’s The Territorial Imperative, Edward Hall’s The Hidden Dimension, Oscar Newman's Defensible Space, and Alice Coleman's Utopia on Trial. And all that territorial work still continues today such as Kevin Leydon’s study on walkability and social capital.

MYSTERY SOLVED

CPTED practitioners seldom complain about such things because context always comes first.

For example in SafeGrowth practitioners and residents use a Risk Assessment Matrix for surveys, safety audits, site visits, and asset maps. Together they create a profile of the neighborhood and what residents feel about it. Only then do they determine to what extent designs enhance territoriality.

Overcoming "definitional rigor"?

Simple: Ask the residents and work with them to discover what they feel enhances their territorial control, a method known as action research and action learning. Mystery solved.