Table of contents for N. 121 in Topos

Oh, hi there! I’m topos, the leading international magazine for urban planning from Munich, Germany. For me, everything revolves around the sustainable city of the future. Online, I spend 365 days a year dealing with the question: how will we live sustainably, healthily and technologized in the world’s future metropolises? In addition to my home www.toposmagazine.com, I am published four times a year as a print magazine (that’s what you are holding in your hands right now!). I address everyone who is interested in the smarter, greener city of the future and who works in, on and with the city. My readers include CEOs, mayors, architects, landscape architects, urban planners, engineers, digitalization specialists, researchers – simply everyone that is interested in urban development! My great passion is finding and analyzing…

In big cities they are omnipresent, even an integral part of the soundscape: acoustic signals of ambulances, police cars or fire engines. While you may no longer be aware of them at home, they are all the more noticeable when you visit other countries and hear the local warning signals for the first time. When we speak about safety, it’s often about prevention. But what if something does happen? Then quick assistance can be requested via an emergency call. There is no worldwide single emergency number – however, there are several common three-digit number combinations that are used in different countries: 911 for example, which is valid in the USA and Canada among others, or 999 from Great Britain – the world’s first emergency number ever. In all EU member…

Is the cost of security always freedom? Shouldn't we, as a civilised, modern society, be able to create security without giving up our liberal values and norms? This topos is a special issue because we have dealt with the topic of security in metropolises: a challenge that concerns us all! At the beginning, it seemed like a perfectly feasible topic. After all, much of our world already revolves around security. We often fear what we know and almost always what we don't know. However, it quickly became apparent that we were dealing with a very extensive network of topics. So we decided to take a proper, broad look. In this issue we deal not only with climate, but also with light and darkness as well as many political topics. We…

„Building a world where everyone can move around without fear, especially women and other excluded groups” – that is the mission of Safetipin, an Indian social enterprise working with urban stakeholders and governments to make public spaces safer and more inclusive. Safetipin is a social enterprise and a technology platform that collects data using crowdsourcing and other methods on safety, walkability, and accessibility in public spaces. The organisation offers three different mobile phone applications and has collected data in over 16 countries and up to 60 cities worldwide. Ankita Kapoor, Assistant Programme Manager, explains how the three Safetipin applications work: "My Safetipin" is a personal safety app helping users make safer decisions about mobility based on the safety score of an area. The app is free and uses crowd-sourced data.…

Sexual violence has rarely been so high on the news agenda. Since allegations against the movie producer Harvey Weinstein started to emerge in October 2017, the global problem has finally become a mainstream issue. The United Nations has estimated that one in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence, with 120 million girls around the world having been forced into sex acts. The repercussions go beyond the physical and psychological toll on individuals who have been attacked. Harassment and fear of violence can impede free movement of girls and women and stop them reaching their full potential, both socially and economically. “If women feel afraid,” says Laura Somoggi, who manages the biennial Womanity award for the prevention of violence against women, “it could undermine their ability to work or…

Safest COPENHAGEN (DK) Safety Score 82.4 TORONTO (CA) Safety Score 82.2 SINGAPORE (SG) Safety Score 80.7 SYDNEY (AU) Safety Score 80.1 Most Unsafe CAIRO (EG) Safety Score 43.7 CARACAS (VE) Safety Score 40.5 KARACHI (PK) Safety Score 39.7 YANGON (MM) Safety Score 39.5 Data Source: Safe City Index 2021 by The Economist Intelligence Unit. The report ranks 60 international cities and considers 76 indicators. The score given here is the “Overall Score” that takes into account digital, health, infrastructure, personal and environmental security. safecities.economist.com…

Europe is running out of juice and the rest of the world is watching. This, or something like it, is the view of many people who are preparing for apocalyptic conditions in a civilized world. Some of them have even turned it into a sport. They call themselves preppers. Being a prepper is not entirely new in Europe, but the scene is not yet as established and large as it is in the US. Both prepper scenes, however, share the fate of having fallen into dubious disrepute. Conspiracy theorists, modern-day preachers of the apocalypse (whatever its origin) and even right-wing extremists in disguise have given prepping a rather bad name. Yet it must be acknowledged that large parts of this world are very familiar with those apocalyptic ways of life.…

When you think of urban security, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Probably first of all security against criminal acts. That makes sense, because it turns out that the number of violent acts in urban environments, for example, has risen dramatically in recent years. The Covid 19 pandemic and, among other things, the lockdowns and restrictions on liberty associated with it have been a major factor in this trend, at least in the area of domestic violence. This illustrates that violence is far from taking place only on the streets for all to see, but to a significant extent in the invisible, behind closed doors. Automatic Lifesavers However, the concept of safety can be interpreted much more broadly. Think of medical safety, for example. In this field, a…

10.5 trillion US dollars. That’s how much cybercrime is expected to cost the global community in 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. An unimaginable sum. But when you consider that in 2022 at least every 10 seconds a cyberattack strikes a company, institution or city, anything seems possible in the cyber sector. By comparison, in 2016 there was a cyberattack every 40 seconds. The report by Cybersecurity Ventures is just one of numerous reports published annually, none of which bode well. Let’s take a dive into the dark web and look at the biggest risk to our cities. Already, cybercrime seems to be the greatest risk to security in metropolises. In addition to so-called “high profile targets” in the private sector, critical infrastructure is particularly in danger. This includes, among other…

Amy Fleming Amy Fleming has worked for the Guardian newspaper in the UK for 20 years, first on staff and now freelance. Other publications she writes for include the FT, Economist, Newsweek, Vogue, Glamour, BBC Science Focus and New Scientist. amyflemingwriter@gmail.com Ramona Kraxner finished her studies in architecture with the Graz Diploma Award 2020. She soon started to actively engage in critical discourse and eventually in architecture communication. She is the brand manager for NXT A, The Network for Young Architecture Workers.  r.kraxner@georg-media.de Jessica Mankel studied History of Art at the Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz. She started her journalism traineeship at Baumeister, Garten + Landschaft and topos in 2019. She has joined the editorial team and works as performance manager. j.mankel@georg-media.de Tobias Hager is a journalist and Chief Content Officer…

When a colleague asked me if I wanted to write an article about urban security regarding women, he mentioned something that I certainly did not hear for the first time, but that I still could absolutely not relate to. He explained, that until some time ago, he had actually never realized, how big and serious of an issue women’s safety – or should I say, un-safety – in urban spaces is. Only through some research and a disturbing story from someone close to him he gained the perspective that for most women is reality. My college is not the only male I know who, at least to some extent, was lacking knowledge and experience when it came to the literal dark sides of a woman’s world. Most of the time,…