MY CITY IS HOSTILE… and so is yours. Here’s why.

This alarming trend goes by several names: “defensive design”, “design against crime”, or simply: “hostile architecture”. But whatever you call it, it communicates the same thing: “don’t make yourself at home in public spaces”.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:29 What is hostile architecture?
05:13 Anti-Community Design
08:56 “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”

Episode No. 149
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since the turn of the 21st century cities like mine and others like it all over the globe have significantly added more public spaces into the urban environment new plazas and Parks pedestrian areas once used for cars cycling paths and promenades once used for trains and reclaimed industrial waterfronts all in order to make cities more welcoming and encourage users to enjoy the Outdoors just don’t get too comfortable whether it’s an uncomfortable bench made with hard materials and angles that aren’t ergonomic armrests and separated seeds that make lying down near impossible serrated spikes along a parapet wall or hardscaping that kind of looks like an abstract sculpture but really is just seating that says come sit but don’t stay these kind of designs have also become more and more prominent Urban Design techniques this phenomenon goes by several names defensive design design against Crime or simply hostile architecture but whatever you call it it communicates the same thing don’t make yourself at home in public spaces defensive design or hostile architecture at its core is simply just design strategies that are used to encourage or discourage behavior these benches at my local train station are one example the armrests and individual seats were a design chosen so that you can’t lie down so was this weird single armrest on a bench at the bus stop these textured undulating rocks underneath this overpass were used in part to deter homeless camping these spikes were added so you don’t use the ledge for rest and these metal brackets were added to this retaining wall in order to deter those pesky teenagers from skateboarding on them so was this planter at the end of a handrail and these kind of design features are becoming more and more common in cities around the world but hostile architecture isn’t actually simply just limited to modifying human behavior we are probably all familiar with hostile design strategies that keep birds from landing and defecating on building elements or to keep dogs from relieving themselves in particular areas in fact I would rager that many of these strategies are so common and so well integrated into our Modern urban fabric that we walk past them without thinking twice most of the time and that’s because while they are actually becoming more common they also aren’t necessarily anything new cities have long built walls and other defensive fortifications for protection to keep away those who we didn’t want to stay and protect those we [Music] did what a strange person and even today metal and concrete ballards are strategically placed around public buildings and plazas to deter stray vehicles and guard against possible Terror attacks they’re important and sadly sometimes necessary what is hostile to some is defensive to others hence the interchangeable name and their pervasive use in cities around the globe but I think what is so interesting about a hostile design elements is just as much as they’re meant to deter certain human behavior they’re also very much intended for you not to probably notice them keeping it kind of invisible to most people is part of the larger strategy and this means that elements of hostile architecture might be hard to spot like I said before many of the Urban Design Des choices for hostile architecture include the use of anti-homeless bikes bars on park benches locked Park Gates or bright Lighting in pedestrian tunnels and these mechanisms don’t affect most people so they may go unnoticed then of course hostile architecture also involves design elements that aren’t installed ones that are quite literally invisible when you design a Public Market Square like this one in my city for instance there are a lot of things you could do but choose not to because that might attract the wrong people this could be for example choosing not to install a pavilion or roofed area to prevent people from gathering for too long or sleeping under it and the absence of a roof is hard to see but the irony that public spaces actively discourage the public from using them shouldn’t be lost on anyone while we might all get on board with a boulder that stops cars from driving on the grass or a spiked roof line to protect a glass facade the reality is that these kind of designs also make our public spaces less inclusive while simultaneously making society’s problems harder to [Music] see now proponents say that this type of Urban Design is necessary to help maintain order ensure safety and curb unwanted Behavior such as loitering sleeping or skateboarding but I don’t want to delegitimize their concerns after all these elements do deter crime they also have been shown to reduce vandalism and rough sleeping but it’s important to remember that through all of these Design Elements we’re not talking about the modification of private spaces but public ones and ultimately the outcome of trying to make places safer has meant that we have created more antisocial places local communities are sustained by face-to-face interactions between members meaning that they depend on their being places for people who do not otherwise know each other to meet and of course in order for local communities to thrive these public spaces do need to feel safe and be pleasant enough for people to spend time in and hostile architecture attempts to achieve this goal by excluding marginalized people who they claim monopolize spaces and make them unsafe and unpleasant which might be true in some cases but these kind of design strategies make public spaces harder for everyone to use these anti-homeless spikes that I showed you earlier from my city might deter sleeping but they have also simultaneously removed a spot where a small child a pregnant person an elderly or disabled individual could briefly stop to rest and it’s happening around the globe in London the Camden benches were created in 2012 and were specifically made to resist criminal and antisocial Behavior which is kind of hilarious because these benches are anything but social objects they were specifically designed to be sat on our used for only brief periods the BBC even described these benches as a masterpiece in unpleasant design especially given that they are also not comfortable to sit on and these leaning bars which were installed in New York Subway system in lie of a bench altogether Drew criticism for not being inclusive from an accessibility standpoint only offering rest to abled bodied users on the public transit system and sadly it seems that things like Comfort are starting to become something that only the privileged get to enjoy because even when they are there objectively uncomfortable benches and anti-loitering measures mean that public spaces are sanitized places that people hurry through as opposed to spaces people genuinely want to spend time in which to be honest defeats the entire purpose of public spaces sustainable security and safety are almost always only ever achieved by good Urban Design with involvement from community and stakeholders in what we call passive surveillance this means people on the streets and not just through keeping people out by Design but we keep doing it and instead of building public spaces where people want to sit and stay and gather for long periods of time those who wish to do so are being pushed into the private sphere into cafes restaurants stadiums and theaters which almost always require money to be able to enter and stay which brings up a really important ethical concern free public spaces are important not only because they have a low to no barrier for entry but because the general population is afforded certain rights in public spaces that are also quietly being trampled upon when we design things like this the right to assembly and the right to access and use public space are rights of all citizens including homeless people that cannot be forgotten but in nearly all design decisions there’s a question of what public space means and who gets to count as public and often community members and decision makers see the disadvantage to be responsible for their own misfortunes and thereby a legitimate Target of such design in the first place the sad reality is that the failings of mainstream Society often make people so uncomfortable that they repress it and attempt to locate the problem somewhere else but somewhere else might very well mean more precarious and dangerous locations where homeless individuals are at risk of criminalization and other harm and of course these moves further disconnect them from Outreach workers and other social services and the reduction in their visibility is seen as a victory rather than concentrating their efforts onto the factors that led them into this lifestyle in the first place such as a lack of Education increased poverty or a history of physical or mental abuse and I actually think that might be why the coverage of hostile architecture in research and Academia is starting to become more widespread these kind of design decisions simultaneously present a window into the type of society that we’ve become and the ways in which less fortunate members of it are treated be real no one wants to sleep on a bench but by introducing barriers for those who don’t have a choice we’re not really helping the situation we’re just further stigmatizing them instead of focusing our energy on addressing the deeper questions here so at this point in my own research on the subject I really started to wonder if these kind of design choices of hostile architecture are becoming more and more prevalent how much is all of this costing us well despite scouring all of the corners of the far-reaching parts of the internet um I found that there actually wasn’t a comprehensive study that looks at this from a monetary standpoint but but public knowledge is that in 2021 the city of Portland alone spent approximately $500,000 installing anti-homeless benches around just one park so if we suppose that each of the US’s 795 major metropolitan cities spend half a million dollars installing anti-homeless Furnishings which let’s be honest is probably a low estimate given how common these things are that equates to to just shy of $400 million spent making homeless people uncomfortable I mean imagine the Headway we could make if we took that same amount of money to help homeless people not be homeless or start to address the systemic issues affecting them such as wage inequality and affordable housing a recent major report by the international monetary fund found that over the past three decades es more than half of all countries and close to 90% of advanced economies have seen an increase in income inequality and that vulnerable groups such as children and pensioners are amongst the hardest hit and I think this is something that more of us should be recognizing within our own cities because for many of us homelessness and poverty are not these abstract Concepts anymore but something that is increasingly on the fringes of our everyday reality and I think honestly when I started looking at this subject especially through the lens of my own City I found myself to just be wholly disappointed when you have to poke or prod or injure an animal for example to get the desired Behavior you want that is pretty objectively considered cruelty yet when I see things like spikes along a wall intentionally uncomfortable seating design the idea that we would do these kind of things to other humans instead of helping support them is really a shame and at the end of the day I think that hostile design does have Ripple effects on Society at large and all Urban Design choices have impacts on the people who live in our cities and it’s crucial to get that balance right and so at this point in the video I would love to hear from you down in the comment section when I was filming for this video I took a tour through my own City to try to look at it through this lens of hostile Arch texure and was honestly pretty shocked by all the different measures that I found but I think it would be really interesting to hear from you down in the comment section on what kind of measures you have seen pop up recently in your own home city um have you seen these things become more prevalent and what are your thoughts and reactions on them do you think they’re having a positive intended um consequence or do you think that they’re not working as intended I I think this would be really interesting to see how things are happening around the globe and I would love to hear your thoughts again down below in the comment section and as always guys if you enjoyed what you saw today be sure to hit that thumbs up button and for more content from typ Aston hit that subscribe button so I’ll see you next Sunday cheers [Music]