ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some theoretical considerations concerning safety and urban development. The notion ‘security’ is broader than ‘safety’. Safety concerns particularly physical protection. Security also concerns more intangible threats, such as terrorist attacks, natural disasters and war. To both notions safety and security, the essence is the lack of the opposite situation: feeling unsafe and insecurity. The meaning of ‘security’ varies according to different disciplines. The term ‘security’ operates at both a macro and micro level, relating to mass threats of warfare and political terrorism as well as to small-scale, localized disorders, antisocial behaviour and affronts to quality of life. There is a long tradition of fighting fear of crime, from the urban walls in pre-modem cities to gentrified enclaves in modem cities. The construction of walls around the premodem city was partly motivated by fears for the physical safety of the inhabitants, but it was also about protecting the profitability of economic activity within the city.
