Safe City Concepts:
Safety of residential areas, especially affordable housing has become an important aspect and has been listed as part of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) initiatives by the United Nations (UN). Several initiatives to measure the safety level have been proposed, including the Safe City Index 2019, the Safe City Program, the Defensible Space Concept, crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), Smart Sustainable Cities, etc.
However, some of these initiatives focus only on crime, others focus on steps to improve safety, and other models are broader but not specific to safety. Besides that, these models place less emphasis on the aspects of spatial assessment, especially the safety level assessment based on affordable housing location in Malaysia. To handle these issues, this study’s aim is to enhance current indicators to assess the safety level of affordable housing, using Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as a case study area.
This study identified 6 indicators; crime, safety and security, infrastructure security, accessibility, natural disaster, and health security. Spatial analysis was done based on the indicators, and the results, it shows that almost all of the affordable housing score are more than 50%, with the highest score being 76.50%, and the lowest score being 44.7%. This indicator can be used as a basis to assess the safety level of affordable housing, especially in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The safety of housing areas has become a consideration for residents lately, especially for affordable housing. The urbanization process raised many concerns in the region, especially on the safety of its residents, that will affect their quality of life. United Nations (UN) has listed that the safety of communities is part of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), as part of goal number 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation and part of goal number 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
To handle these issues, several initiatives have been designed and implemented, to reduce the security issues, or disaster risks that are based on the concept of a safe city. Safe City concept is dedicated to ensuring the urban area free from all physical, social, and mental threats. The concept of a Safe City is the urban city is in a protected state, not creating an atmosphere that can encourage incidents that interfere with the well-being of the local people, and their occupants are always in the most secure, prosperous, healthy, and cheerful condition [5]. With this situation and the safety of residents well-protected people will avoid danger and disaster, be free from fear, and be able to live a safe and sound life.
Several initiatives on the concept of a safe city have been proposed previously, including the Safe City Index (2019), the Safe City Program in Malaysia, the Defensible Space Concept, Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) [8], and Smart Sustainable Cities in Cagliari, Italy.
Some of these initiatives have different focuses, some initiative focuses only on crime, while others focus on steps to improve safety, and others model that is a broader focus but not specific to safety. Besides that, these initiatives lack the aspects of spatial assessment, especially on the safety level of affordable housing in Malaysia. To cater to these issues, this study aims to enhance current indicators to assess the safety level of affordable housing, using Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as a case study area. The scope of the study focused on the indicators to assess from several aspects and use the affordable housing scattered in Kuala Lumpur area, Malaysia.
To assess the safety level of affordable housing, the definition of the safe city concept, and the relationship between safety with affordable housing need to be addressed. A safe city concept can be defined as a city that is free from all kinds of physical threats, social and mental threats, and protected from any tendencies that can threaten the welfare of society and contribute to creating a prosperous, secure, and comfortable environment. A city should be a safe place to live, work and play. There are three aspects that are related to each other that influence the success of a city and a society which are housing, public facilities such as schools and shops, and the urban environment that influences the behavior of the local community.