Hot Spot City
Ensuring peaceful coexistence in a dense and diverse city is no easy task. Violence in families, drug use, gang wars and radicalization – or just the fear of strangers – are putting urban security to the test. Different cities pursue different security strategies.
London has relied on video surveillance and road barriers for decades. In Paris, barriers and military presence in public places have become normal. The Berlin police have formed a new “hot spot unit”. Many US cities use predictive policing to try to predict theft, break-ins, and even murder. Several German states have also started testing digital crime prediction methods. And, the demonstrations surrounding the death of George Floyd have clearly shown the hidden or obvious potential for discrimination these measures have.
That is why we ask: How safe are our cities? What fuels the fear of terror and crime? What is a safe city anyway? What role will technologies play in this? How should police work be designed in the future? What needs to be done in politics and civil society?
Events of the day
Safe & Urban. Lecture Performance
A young street furniture company presents its new products, which help to prevent undesired behavior by skillful interventions in urban space.
- Concept: Martin Binder
- Performance: Christian Dieterle
Urban Toolkits: Urban Furniture. Talk
- Martin Binder, Artist, Berlin
- Anke Schröder, Sociologist of Architecture with Focus on Urban Safety
The (Un-)safe City. Discussion
- Stephan Anpalagan, Journalist and Business Consultant
- Marie Bröckling, Journalist, netzpolitik.org
- Anke Schröder, Sociologist of Architecture with Focus on Urban Safety
- Britta Zur, Chief of Police, Gelsenkirchen