Poster #52 - Designing Out Poverty: Architecture as Social Control in the Regulation of Urban Public Space

• In Event: Poster Session I (posters 1 - 79)

Abstract

Urban design increasingly incorporates architectural features intended to regulate behavior in public space. Often described as hostile architecture, these elements, such as segmented benches and spatial deterrents, impose physical or psychological costs that discourage prolonged occupation and function as informal crime prevention strategies within highly visible urban environments. This study advances a measurement approach for examining environmental crime prevention through spatial analysis. Using a descriptive, cross-sectional design, over 300 geotagged hostile design features were documented through field audits and photographic verification and mapped using ArcGIS. These data are integrated with neighborhood-level indicators, including median household income and unemployment, to assess how such interventions are distributed across urban space. Grounded in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and Situational Crime Prevention (SCP), the analysis conceptualizes these features as place-based mechanisms that increase effort, control access, and signal appropriate use of space. Findings indicate that installations are systematically concentrated in high-visibility, high-traffic environments and align with patterns of economic activity rather than random distribution. Methodologically, this study demonstrates how spatial mapping and field-based data collection can be used to operationalize and measure environmental crime prevention strategies as observable, place-based interventions shaping movement, visibility, and presence in public space.

Author

• Haneen J. Alani, University of New Haven