Urban violence and insecurity in places of collective life

Abstract

Of the numerous problems currently facing Latin America and the Caribbean, violence and insecurity are most outstanding, and in the majority of cases, they are most often experienced in public open space. Daily crime and violence threaten to segregate the collective spatiality of ordinary citizens. Based on this argument, by means of behavioural analysis, we herein analyse the behaviour of individuals in a specific public space. This has revealed that the environment of insecurity generated by violence and crime, has segregated the collective spatiality of public spaces and has contributed to problems such as the disappearance of a sense of community, thereby increasing socio-spatial segregation and polarization between social spaces and their habitants.

Keywords:
urbanization; socio-spatial segregation; public spaces; citizen security; urban violence