The most incredible examples of successful urban revitalization made real and perceived safety a top priority and used innovative approaches to get results fast. New York City, South Beach, Bryant Park and Cleveland’s Euclid Avenue went from places to be avoided to places attracting major investment. All of these efforts paid close attention to safety perceptions and used improvements to change marketplace behavior and transform great urban places.

Over the last 25 years, we have developed an innovative, integrated and intentional system to improve real and perceived safety, “Safedesign™ which has helped directly in South Beach and Cleveland. Safedesign™ combines the best concepts and techniques of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED), Defensible Space, Broken Windows Theory, Community Oriented Policing, the Mainstreet program, Clean and Safe systems, Crime Watch, and a variety of retail/lifestyle center management best practices. Adjustments to the physical environment, programs/patrols, and strategic communications are intentionally used to maximize impacts.

But Safedesign™ goes much further. It utilizes market forces and enlightened self-interest of various stakeholders to leverage limited civic resources, and it is the only system that proactively measures and manages safety perceptions for downtowns, urban neighborhoods, and urban entertainment districts. The approach was recently recognized with the Award of Excellence for Best Practices from the American Planning Association Florida Chapter.

Unique features of the Safedesign™ approach include:

More Than Just Police

Both real and perceived safety are impacted more by actions of non-police than police, including landlords, architects, engineers, code-enforcement officers, vendors and landscapers. Integrating solutions beyond police departments and making real and perceived safety a responsibility across organizations and professions is at the core of the Safedesign^TM system.

Training the Crowd

In order to ensure the success of real and perceived safety initiatives, we often train large and diverse group of stakeholders so they understand and implement new concepts and techniques. Participants often include planners, police, landscape crews, neighborhood watch captains, architects, civil engineers, lighting and storefront designers, communications staff, elected officials, and many others.

Strategic Measures of Fear and Place Avoidance

Each urban place has one or more target markets, and each of those demographic groups has a different “safety threshold.” We successfully measure these perceptions by using targeted focus groups, indirect survey questions, creative cross-tabs, professionally-guided safety audits, and visual preference surveys.

Positive, Indirect Messaging

Given the emotionally charged nature of safety messages and the indirect negative impressions surrounding many safety initiatives, we help create messaging campaigns using specific images and wording to indirectly communicate safety., Images of night-time events for children and women with strollers, positive conflict stories, and carefully crafted panhandling reduction materials are just a few examples of this approach.

Complete Streets After Dark

Because a majority of non-vehicle trips either begin or end with a walk or bike ride after dark, we bring a new perspective and set of solutions to the Complete Streets approach by providing unique design solutions, operational procedures, lighting techniques, signage, and more. Sidewalks and other pathways, transit stops and stations, and even bicycle storage locations all benefit from our recommendations.

Total Travel Path™ Analysis

We evaluate the complete physical pathway of visitors to and from urban places from the perspective of users, assessing where along the path a person might feel less than safe enough.. Our recommendations to travel pathways often include very specific improvements to landscaping, lighting, wayfinding signage, public art, pre-intersection conditions, gateways/thresholds, transit stops, graffiti removal, staffed posts or vendors, paving materials, and similar adjustments.

Innovative Physical Design Changes

We provide carefully integrated and incremental design solutions to improve access control, natural surveillance, territoriality and informal social interaction – making spaces less comfortable for panhandlers, reducing isolation in parking garages and lots, and improving the wayfinding experience.

Safedesign™ utilizes many other detailed techniques and strategies to maximize impact. The essence of the system is to weave safety considerations into nearly every aspect of urban place-making beginning with design and continuing through daily operations. This extensive attention to detail changes everything.