SAFETY AS AN INDICATOR OF SUSTAINABILITY: THE ASSESSMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND CRIMINAL RISK. AN APPLICATION IN NAPLES

At the international level, Goal 11 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda emphasizes the importance of making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable, and of “providing universal access to safe, inclusive, and accessible green and public spaces.” Urban safety is, therefore, a fundamental component of sustainability, influencing quality of life and the usability of public spaces. Safe and well-designed cities foster social inclusion, promote healthy lifestyles, and contribute to community cohesion. This study analyzes criminal and environmental risks as indicators of urban sustainability, adopting an integrated multi-risk approach based on the territorial risk paradigm. Within the framework of the PRIN 2022 PNRR SeTUP-Security Through Urban Planning project, an evaluative model for natural and criminal risk was developed to produce a dataset of values aimed at identifying the most critical, i.e., unsafe, areas to be addressed through appropriate planning, design, and management. The paper presents the initial results of the project, which include an analysis of actual safety conducted using a top-down approach concerning environmental risk (natural hazards) and crime, applied to the context of green spaces and urban parks in Naples. Based on this analysis, case studies will subsequently be selected for conducting a bottom-up perceptual survey.