Seeking Shelter in Pandora’s Box. Or Fear, Security and the City
Contemporary urban landscape is radically and drastically undergoing change. This change is instigated by the impact of globalisation and by the creation of a ubiquitous global frontier-land, increasingly characterised by insecurity and uncertainty. Globalisation entails, among other things, the crowding of a vast number of people from rural areas in urban settings, something that is taking place on a global scale and that is transforming previous towns in the Third as well as the Western World into monstrous megalopolises. The social consequences and side-effects of globalisation on urban culture and architecture are mirrored in the militarisation of public but not civic space, the suspicion and concomitant criminalisation of strangers, the creation of gated and fortified communities, the segregation of populations and the purification of public place of coincidental encounters or social interaction. Simultaneously, people in public areas now wear armoured clothing or drive reinforced vehicles in order to avoid unwanted or potentially threatening contact. These changes inaugurate a new urban environment increasingly saturated by fear, suspicion and lack of human interaction – the withdrawal from public space of ideals of community and the good society, and the transformation of the city from enchanted public place to disenchanted non-place or private place.
