Rwandan refugee camp in east Zaire.jpg
This is speculative - please improve by adding studies and esttablished practices, and deleting garbage.

The answer is partly a social one, and partly design. There is an "eyes on streets" approach (going from memore) in urban planning which reduces crime by having people's windows look out where pedestrians walk, so crime may be seen, and potential criminals know that they're at greater risk of being caught.

So the design aspect is to have a layout where no one can risk pulling apart someone's shelter without risking being seen by a number of other households.

The social aspect is hard for me to comment on, but I'm sure that there are informal groupings that become established in refugee camps. Perhaps certain social activities, as well as design choices (e.g. children's play/sport groups, placement of taps, and seating/shade in common areas) can discourage the bad social capital (e.g. gangs, by reducing all opportunities for crime and corruption) and encourage the good social capital (cooperative groups that take care of security and share the work of constructing new facilities).

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Keywords temporary communities, design, social capital, urban planing
Authors Chris Watkins
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 0 pages link here
Impact 86 page views
Created February 4, 2010 by Chris Watkins
Modified October 23, 2023 by Maintenance script
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