Research
Safe Landscape: Evaluating Crime Prevention through Urban Morphology and Natural Surveillance Metrics
Urban morphological dynamics play a leading role in influencing the occurrence of criminal activities. The spatial configuration of public spaces can either amplify or mitigate the incidence of offenses in specific locations, as well as impact perceptions of insecurity and fear. Within the context of Brazilian cities, the rise in crime generates significant harm, affecting various sectors of society. Therefore, the objective is to evaluate urban landscape morphology and visual dynamics related to crime incidence in the central neighborhood of the municipality of São José dos Pinhais, Paraná, Brazil. Using a mixed-method approach, criminal data was geocoded through heat maps to identify urban spaces for analysis. The evaluation procedures, grounded solely in crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) and defensible space principles of natural surveillance, were developed to assess Google Street View images. The Delphi Technique was applied to establish the weighting of criteria related to visual permeability. Spatialization and critical assessment of results were followed. The study found that despite favorable morphological conditions for natural surveillance and visual permeability in the city center, crime rates remained high. Key contributions include developing an online methodology for urban analysis enabling fast and effective city diagnostics for researchers and urban planners, which was chosen over in loco pictures for temporal comparability, access to sensitive areas, and data quality consistency. Beyond, the prioritization of visual landscape criteria provides a singular element analysis that expands on environmental criminology research. These findings suggest that natural surveillance alone does not account for the elevated incidence of street thefts and robberies, highlighting the need for a holistic framework that considers socioeconomic, cultural, and spatial factors. It is recommended further methodological refinement beyond exploratory approaches, adaptations to specific Brazilian and Global South contexts, and a broader inclusion of relevant variables.
Post Pandemic City Rethinking Urban Landscapes through Humanized Management
The recent epidemiological events and the associated need for scientific knowledge have increased the number of investigations on the impact of diseases in different areas, but at the level of built scenarios, the problems caused by inadequate infrastructure and urban characteristics in coping with health crises are widespread. Given these issues, the general objective of this research is to assess the application of solutions in the field of humanized management of (post-) pandemic urban landscapes, especially in an international context. A scientometric analysis and a systematic review of secondary sources was conducted in the Lens, Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS) databases, quantifying the results and classifying their characteristics to d elineate the main academic discussions. The literature search yielded a total of 200,032 texts, of which 194 were selected for preliminary analysis after applying filters. This showed that publications on WoS (51.35%) and those with empirical approaches (70.62%) predominate, with Europe (33.51%) being more represented, although the United States (12.89%) published a greater number of articles. The thematic categories of the 149 studies selected for full reading were isolation and social distance (18.79%), effects of pandemics in municipalities (17.45%), open spaces and green areas (13.42%), community experiences (12.08%), smart cities (11.41%), technology and innovation (10.74%), people-centered contexts (8.05%), human rights and public policy (6.71%), and urban design and planning (1.34%). It can be concluded that essential aspects of the last category, relevant to the configuration of humanized landscapes, are still scarcely discussed, which shows that future research should focus on citizens' participation and the subjectivity of their experiences in urbanized environments.
