Perceived neighborhood safety in the built environment: The case of Amman's Boulevard

The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between the built environment and individuals' sense of safety and how this sense is related to urban sustainability and urban transformation in a district of Amman, Jordan. Also, to investigate how urban planning and well-designed urban areas affect feelings of safety and fear of crime at the neighborhood level. Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) as a tool to reduce crime in urban areas and measure residents' feelings of safety was considered to improve neighborhood sense of security and fear of crime and how they influence the neighborhood. Despite the increase in witnessed crime rates in the neighborhood after the project, results showed that people felt safer after the construction of the boulevard project compared to the period before it. The main reasons for people's feeling of safety according to the study were the wide spread of police after the boulevard project and the maintenance and the well-designed streets that were offered after the construction of the boulevard project as well. Contrary to expectations, when investigating the second generation of the CPTED that is related to social cohesion and community involvement, people felt that the social cohesion of the neighborhood was higher, and that also played a major role in their safety feeling. The study conducted a quantitative method using a questionnaire that was answered by people who live in the neighborhood. 96 Responses to 29 questions were collected to measure safety feelings and fear of crime in the neighborhood and also to understand people's perspectives on social cohesion and community involvement and connect it to second generation CPTED. An in-depth literature review was carried out on both safety feeling and its relationship with the built environment, and Crime Prevention viii Through Environmental Design. Some predictions were as expected and were in line with the literature review as people felt safer after the boulevard project, but some were the opposite as expected, as it was believed that after the demolition of some of the houses that the project was built on, social cohesion will decrease, but it didn't and it was believed that this might have been one of the reasons for the increase of the safety feeling perspectives upon residents.