Cities, Violence and Order: the Challenges and Complex Taxonomy of Security Provision in Cities of Tomorrow

How will security in cities be understood in the future? For whom will it be provided?
What are the ways by which urban security provision will be governed? And, what
impact will violence and order in cities have on the processes of state-building in
fragile contexts in the future? These questions are uppermost in the minds of
policymakers and academics. A growing body of evidence underlines the heterogeneity of
security processes and outcomes, both within and between cities. Notwithstanding these
recent advances, contemporary paradigms of urban development do not substantively
account for the ways in which the social, political, economic and physical aspects of urban
form interact and shape the mechanics of security provision in cities.
There is a perceptible gap in development policy, compromising the manner in which
international donors, multilateral agencies, national and sub-national policymakers respond
to urban challenges today. Part of this gap is due to the separation between development
theory or urban planning, and issues of fragility due to conflict and violence. These have
usually been different epistemic and operational domains, to the detriment of either a
comprehensive approach to analysing fragility and violence or effective approaches to
security provision.