Open-Source Databases Related to Urban Security Issues

Dimitrijević, Ivan and Paraušić, Ana (2019) Open-Source Databases Related to Urban Security Issues. Security dialogues: international peer reviewed journal, 10 (1-2). pp. 89-100. ISSN 1857-8055

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Abstract

Progressive urbanization of cities worldwide, appearance and expansion of so- called global cities (or world cities, megacities), global interconnectedness of large economic and trade urban centers, and rapid technological development of contemporary cities are just some of the most obvious advancements within global urban trends in the last decades. However, as urban history teaches us, with every new global development – from maritime economics and trade, colonization, and different industrial revolutions, through development of telecommunication, electric power transmission and tourism, all the way to environmental issues, globalization and the last ICT revolution – cities were the focus of some of the greatest pressures which appeared under these changes, primarily in the form of various population and infrastructure issues. The immediate manifestations of these changes were mirrored in general population safety and security problems appearing constantly throughout history. As time went by, these urban security issues were addressed differently. In earlier stages of urban development, responses to security issues were mostly ad hoc, rarely institutionalized, based on simple solutions, and short-term oriented. With the advancement of urban infrastructure and management, these reactions became more complex, better informed and followed by long-term goals. Besides that, the diversity of stakeholders in this process developed as well. Today, there is a multitude of actors interested and involved in planning and executing various solutions for contemporary urban security issues. Traditionally, national and local government, are still key providers of security in this context, but often they are implementing solutions in partnership with international organizations, non-governmental organizations, civil society, private enterprises, the media, and academia. The development of information and communication technology (ICT) in the last two decades brought some new possibilities for dealing with urban security challenges and threats, and the most important place in the development of these possibilities have the aforementioned non-state actors. New ICT environment brought up various and diverse means for automatization of collection, management, and use of important data regarding different urban security issues, for instance the traffic safety data, crime rates and distribution data, pollution data etc. These aggregated datasets and data clusters, covering urban areas for decades back, today represent a precious resource for diagnosis of the existing urban security conditions, and also bear the potential for making precise estimations of trends regarding the concrete issue. In this manner, the authors of this paper will try to make an overview of the most prominent existing databases regarding urban security, and discuss the need for open-source databases which are covering datasets related to urban security issues. This overview will also try to detect the urban security issues which are not addressed sufficiently and properly within these data-bases, and thus make the appropriate recommendations and directions for future developments in this field

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