Technologies of security: building safe, clean, and beautiful urban spaces. / STREAM G – Governing cities

Organizers: Ana María Forero (Universidad de Los Andes, CO); Andrés Salcedo (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, CO). 

Contacts: Am.forero260@uniandes.edu.co; amforeroangel@gmail.com; asalcedofidalgo@gmail.com

Recently, there has been a shift in technologies of urban governance and planning to deal with insecurity in many cities around the world, e.g. in Latin America’s and European growing cities, as in African cities. The demarcation of problem areas for redevelopment projects and the surveillance of middle class neighborhoods by private security companies have become popular mechanisms for the creation of more secure, attractive, and sustainable urban environments. City administrations, private promoters, and in some cases property owners justify this strategic combination of renovation and surveillance as a way to transform chaotic and decaying urban landscapes. Significantly, large-scale renovation plans as well as middle class privatized initiatives to control crime invoke the improvement of “quality of life” as their main rationale. In this manner, city authorities, real estate companies, and private security firms claim to improve general living conditions while reproducing middle class assumptions about urban safety, cleanliness, and beauty.

This session invites papers exploring how governance practices promote new architectural forms, uses of space, and real estate dynamics. By studying these urban phenomena the panels reflects on emergent forms of exclusion, segregation, and inequality in contemporary cities.


G1 Technologies of security: building safe, clean and beautiful urban spaces

Chairs: Ana María Forero (Universidad de Los Andes) Andrés Salcedo (Universidad Nacional de Colombia)

Contacts: Am.forero260@uniandes.edu.co amforeroangel@gmail.com asalcedofidalgo@gmail.com

Hishiyama Kosuke
Mixing Security and Tradition of Gated Community in Bali

Cristiana Zara
New cities, new aesthetics? Creating, governing and experiencing beauty

Randi Gressgård
Plural policing and the safety–security nexus in urban governance: The case of Malmö

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