06.04.2023
Fear of crime affects the quality of life of all citizens. But, above all, it imposes disproportionate limitations on women’s daily lives, limiting their active participation in the public life of a city. As all urban residents have the right to live in a secure and safe city, proactively reducing urban crime through policing, the conscious shaping of the urban environment, and other softer measures are paramount.
The objective of this Lab is to analyze how the built and natural environment affects gender violence in the city of Cluj-Napoca and explore solutions (e.g., architectural, placemaking, ownership, social cohesion, etc.) that can increase the actual and perceived safety of women and girls and decrease their fear of crime.
Designed as a three-day in-person event, the Lab will take place in the municipality of Cluj-Napoca, the second largest city in Romania, between the 15th and 17th of June, 2023.
Agenda/Design
Day 1 – Baseline
Present the agenda, allow participants to meet and learn about each other, and introduce the challenge and proposed outputs. Expose participants to localized data on violence against women, the city strategy, and the citizen safety perception survey results. Participants will select one location from the proposed public spaces for analysis/development of solutions.
Day 2 – Induction and Immersion
Site visits and fieldwork for observing and analyzing the public spaces. Participants of the Lab will select one specific area indicated by the survey respondents as being ‘unsafe,’ and will examine the features of the micro-environment during the Lab. The analysis will be informed by official statistics, data from the SafeCities app, and a questionnaire designed for Cluj citizens on perceptions of safety and public spaces. Observations and notes are compared and analyzed in a facilitated reflection at the end of the day.
Day 3 – Reflection and Recommendations
The third day is dedicated to developing solutions (architectural, social, mobility, crime control, etc.) to increase the perceived and actual safety of the public space, using group work clustered around potential solutions.
Follow-up: collaborative development of at least two of the proposed outputs.
If the Safety Lab is of interest, please join us. You can contact us at office@icf-fri.org.
Departments/units: Policy Analysis and Outreach Department, Center on Global Affairs and Post Development
Regions: Romania, Europe, Global
Topics: Cities, Architecture and Urbanism, Philanthropy and Community Development, Civil Society, Sustainable Development Goals, European Union