Urban Design and Security in the COVID-19 World

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses to close and people around the world to separate themselves in an effort to slow the spread of this highly contagious disease that has taken the lives of more than 100,000 globally. For many people in the world who live in dense urban environments where multi-modal public and mass transit systems enable proximity and easy access to work, entertainment, dining, and lifestyle opportunities the pressures of the pandemic have become starkly apparent. As cities begin to open up the critical economic sector of restaurants and bars across the US and the world, some cities are closing down streets and allowing restaurants to expand into these newly created open spaces to enable greater social distancing while patrons dine. There are several interesting points that this raises for both urban design, urban security, and counterterrorism.

From an urban design and place making perspective, the pedestrianization of streets and creation of new al fresco dining spaces should be welcomed. This type of public open space design and activation is indeed what urban planners and urban designers around the world have been working towards for decades. Pedestrianization of streets fosters greater walkability, activity, livability, creates greater opportunities for green spaces, and contributes to environmental sustainability by reducing vehicle usage. These benefits are frequent objectives of urban planners and designers as societies move into a more socially conscious world that places greater emphasis on how our cities are designed and can evolve to greater benefit human existence and urbanity. While it is true that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted issues associated with increasing urbanity, and may spur a more balanced approach to suburban development and design, the global trend of increasing urbanization is unlikely to be reversed. As working from home is likely to become a "new normal" the creation of high quality and engaging publicly accessible spaces in both suburban and urban environments will also have an impact upon desirability and economic vitality.

The creation of publicly accessible space that foster positive experiences, whether that be through public parks and green spaces, or through pedestrianization of streets also carries with it security risks, especially from terrorism. While the world has been grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of terrorism and the trend of low sophisticated attacks against people in the everyday streetscape has not disappeared. As cities look to open their restaurants and bars and create pedestrianized spaces, the unintended consequence is that they are putting the targets of terrorism into areas that generally offer less protection. The trend of terrorists using marauding attacks (MTA) or Vehicle as a Weapon (VAW) tactics has not changed and they remain highly attractive and viable. When people are gathered inside of a building they are less exposed to these attack methodologies which by their nature are initiated and generally perpetrated against many easily accessible targets in the public realm. While terrorism is at the extreme end of the security spectrum, there are everyday personal and property crime considerations too.

As cities and municipalities begin to look at ways of reopening businesses that are dependent upon public access and a necessary level of density to be successful, they need to be mindful of the security implications, and how they respond through design. Thankfully from a crime perspective, positive and engaging spaces that attract "capable guardians" and higher levels of activity and natural surveillance tend to deter most opportunistic criminals. However, the placement of temporary concrete barriers to close down streets or demarcate an area are also not the ideal. Furthermore, temporary barriers do little to effectively prevent easily executed terrorist attack methodologies such as MTAs and VAWs.

As we move into a new post-COVID paradigm that may result in more widespread pedestrianization of streets, activation of spaces, and place making to improve our urban environments we also need to be cognizant of the security risks and how this informs the urban and landscape design response. If this paradigm becomes more permanent, it will be imperative for protective security to influence how streetscapes are designed with security integrated into the landscape architecture. Moreover, as businesses attract their patrons to be outside of their building envelopes, they need to be increasingly aware of any developing situations in the streetscape and public realm. Ultimately, what this new paradigm requires is a much greater integration between businesses, urban planners, policy makers, and security authorities to work together to ensure that we as society address risk management together.