The Disrupted Space: Safety and Security in traditional contexts

One of the core elements of successful planning is the individuals’ experience of their shared open spaces. This paper attributes to the relationship between safety and urban design by means of natural surveillance and security in the city’s shared spaces. It examines how political claims over space reassembled alternative definitions of security in one of Cairo’s oldest quarters, and how ambitious planning schemes were mostly driven by problems of insecurity, chaos and disorder. The main crux to this account is based on original documents, interviews and maps which reveals considerable insights and accounts of how this vision affected the quarter’s spatial quality and the user’s reactions to his new spatial formula. It also reveals conflicting conceptions of safety and security between the planning ambitions and the users experiences, which not only lacked reliable visions for securing the quarter, but also resulted further disruption to their everyday living spaces.