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The Secure City
In Conclusion
The Government of Canada has recognized in the most recent Speech from the Throne a pressing need for a national urban agenda, although at present, the debate is bogged down on issues of infrastructure improvement and related calls to restructure the taxation policies that would provide cities with more resources and political control. There are several inherent problems with this policy orientation if the proposed focus neglects or is not grounded in a secure city agenda. Either unintended in consequences may be created because the policies do not respond to the capacity building issues related to resilience, adaptability and redundancy that have been identified previously, or else the policies themselves may compound existing problems because they miss their intended mark. For example, public policy initiatives designed to improve border security that limit individual freedoms or suppress human rights at the expense of strengthening the multicultural foundation of our intrinsically ethnic urban areas is counter productive. Similarly, national security policies emphasizing missile defense systems at the expense of creating secure cities is counter intuitive given that most of the threats are targeted toward the cities.
A new urban agenda for Canada is a welcome initiative, but it will be most effective if it is set within an articulated and supported security matrix.
We have a unique opportunity to use our cities as a crucible for creating peace, liberty and security. Cities should be the locus for more integrated precaution, prevention and risk assessment. Preventive, Adaptive and Human Security provide direction for the stewardship of scarce resources to build capacity at the community level and enhance livability. The research challenge is to create effective models that respond to the threats and focus resources to support where they need them. This will require a network of local, national and international expertise to push the frontiers of our traditional planning paradigms, and design new pathways that can be shared with the world.
We invite your input.