Urban Security from a Complexity Theory Perspective: Resilient Cities

SIGG, Opatija, 21 March 2013

Prof. Eve Mitleton-Kelly

Director

Complexity Research Programme

LSE

A Complexity Theory Approach to Resilient Cities

• Multiple and changing threats, risks & challenges: terrorism, climate change, crime, sustainability, etc.

• Apparently intractable challenges, are complex and cannot be effectively addressed with linear approaches

• Nor can they be addressed in isolation: need a holistic multi-dimensional approach

• Each policy will influence and change the other: they will co-evolve

A Complexity Theory Approachto Resilient Cities• Need to identify the multi-dimensional problem

space

• Co-create Enabling Urban Environments: resilient & co-evolutionary

• Security is not the exclusive responsibility of the State & cannot be legislated top-down – need to involve stakeholders at multiple levels

• Need a multi-dimensional approach to resilient cities – underpinned by complexity theory

Emphasis on technology - UK

• 1990s: car-bomb attacks against financial targets in England

• Security zoning focused on available technology - advanced closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras – e.g. ‘ring of steel’ in the City of London in 1992

‘iron collar’ in the London Docklands in 1996• To prevent further Provisional IRA attacks

• Ring of Steel: Roads entering the City are narrowed and have small chicanes to force drivers to slow down and be recorded by CCTV cameras

• ‘fortress urbanism’

(Coaffee J. Protecting vulnerable cities: the UK’s resilience response to defending everyday urban infrastructure, International Affairs 86:4 (2010) 939-954)

Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, USA

• Launched by Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly in 2005

• Similar to the ‘ring of steel’– CCTV cameras– the cameras are programmed to include the delivery of packages– license plate reading devices; scan plates and compare the

numbers with information in a database– mobile roadblocks, which could swivel into the streets and block

traffic– chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear detectors

• The counterterrorism technologies (Domain Awareness System) are networked and provide critical supplemental assistance to police officers

Evolving Focus

• The 'Iron Collar' in Docklands after the attempted bombing at South Quays

• The rhetoric accompanying the physical cordon in the City gradually changed

• Not just to design out terrorism• The City of London Corporation increasingly added

environmental justifications such as:– reducing traffic congestion– improving air quality– & reducing other forms of crime

• What began as a security initiative evolved into promoting the City nationally and internationally and reinforcing the position of the Corporation of London

Not just technology: but intelligent design

• Not just technology, but intelligent aesthetically pleasing design with stealthy counterterrorism features– e.g. new US Embassy building in SW London– to be completed by 2017, at a cost of over £620m

• Plans incorporate innovative and largely ‘stealthy’ counterterrorism design features

• Reminiscent of medieval European castle design– protected castle keep surrounded by a moats

• In addition to a blast-proof glass facade, will use landscape features as security devices, to minimize the use of fences and walls to avoid giving a ‘fortress feel’ to the site– e.g. ponds and multi-level gardens could provide a 30-metre

protective ‘blast zone’ around the site

Proportionality, collective responsibility & visibility

• Proposed embassy design highlights a number of key features of contemporary counterterrorism philosophy as applied to the protection of urban areas and their critical infrastructure

• These include the need to: – integrate effective protective security into the design of sites at

risk; – involve built environment professionals such as planners,

architects and urban designers in security planning;– consider the visible impact of security measures and make them

as unobtrusive as possible.

• Proportionality, collective responsibility and visibility of protective counterterrorism security: West Review

West Review

• Lord West (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Security and Counterterrorism) Review– how government could best protect ‘crowded places,

transport infrastructure and critical national infrastructure from terrorist attack’

• Completed in November 2007, highlighted the need– to improve the resilience of ‘strategic national

infrastructure (stations, ports and airports) and other crowded places, and to step up physical protection against possible vehicle bomb attacks’

West Review

• Emphasised that protecting such crowded areas was a collective concern

• Noted that the government would work with planners, architects and designers to encourage them to ‘design in’ protective security measures

Involvement of Stakeholders

• Highlighted the need for cooperation among stakeholders, most notably private businesses and built environment professionals to make crowded places safer

• Need to raise the awareness and skills of architects, planners and police in relation to counterterrorist protective security

• Not just guidance to local authorities and businesses by security specialists, but the actual implementation of measures to increase the safety of crowded spaces at highest risk of attack

Technology is necessary, but not sufficient: need distributed intelligence

• “Threats are unpredictable and the full range of threats probably unknowable. Security in this situation needs to be flexible and agile and capable of addressing new threats as they emerge. Protective technologies have a key role to play in making our cities safer but only if supported by organizations and people who can develop pre-attack security strategies, manage the response to an attack, and hasten recovery from it.”

Richard Little, ‘Holistic strategy for urban security’, Journal of Infrastructure Systems 10: 2, 2004, pp. 52–9 at p.57

HM Government, Countering the terrorist threat: social and behaviour science—how academia and industry can play their part (London: HM Government, March 2010)

COST C19 Action Proactive Crisis Management of Urban Infrastructure

Managing the safety and security of urban infrastructures

Some key recommendations:• Need better methods to address complex interactions of urban

infrastructure systems, physical environment, level of services and social factors

• Improved communication between different stakeholders is crucial for efficient risk management

• Traditionally engineers and practitioners are better trained for solving deterministic problems. There are needs for better training including uncertainty in problem solving

COST (European Cooperation in Science

and Technology) C19

• Systematic learning from past events/accidents gives valuable information both to the involved parties but also to similar institutions elsewhere

• Interdependencies between the different infrastructures– e.g. disruption in electricity supply could impact traffic and water

distribution

• Prototype tool for identification and estimation of risk related to critical infrastructure

www.COSTC19.eu www.cost.org includes cases illustrating the use of methods and lessons

learned from previous crisesRostrum J. (2009) Proactive Crisis Management of Urban Infrastructure:

Executive Summary of the COST Action C19

Risk is omnipresent in an interdependent world

• The UK’s National Security Strategy: Security in an Interdependent World (Cabinet Office, 2008) aimed to set out how the UK Government would address and manage a diverse but interconnected set of security challenges in both the short and long term

• Security was viewed holistically, included:– the insecurity resulting from climate change

– supply-side energy issues (reliance on imported fuel from politically unstable regions)

– enhanced global demand for energy, especially in western nations and emerging nations, e.g. India and China

Conflicts & Synergies between Security and SustainabilityConflicts• e.g. increasing the glazing on a building for increased sunlight and reduced

heating bills • Vs increasing the glass hazard in the event of an explosion • protective building perimeters increase the concreting of open space • Vs increasing the urban heat island effect and water run-off

Synergies• Landscaping systems that are ‘green’ and can help crime prevention through

environmental design principles e.g. ponds and trees acting as physical barriers instead of expanses of concrete and rows of steel bollards

• Could be used as security features, as well as part of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems that are designed to reduce the occurrence and impact of flooding in urban areas (White and Howe, 2005)

(Jon Coaffee, Risk, resilience, and environmentally sustainable cities, Energy Policy 36 (2008) 4633–4638)

Slow Variables & Thresholds• Urban populations continue to aggregate in areas vulnerable to

combinations of slow variables (e.g. sea level changes, periodic flooding) that can move the system closer to thresholds (disasters waiting to happen), where disturbances (e.g. tsunamis, hurricanes) can trigger disasters

• Hurricane Katrina killed 1,500 in New Orleans in 2005

• 40 years before Katrina, NO was experiencing trends in multiple slow variable indicators that, in combination, made the city vulnerable: rising seas, a compacting deltaic landscape, suburban sprawl in areas below sea level, coastal wetland loss, economic decline and low maintenance of levee systems

• NO was heading towards a critical threshold and Katrina pushed the system 50 years into its future, had the hurricane not struck

Change in Perspective• Rather than defend against slow changes, it is less costly

and more sustainable to adapt and integrate human settlement to promote restoration of ‘natural’ processes (e.g. large scale freshwater and sediment diversions)

• Rather than transforming the physical environment to suit the city, a reciprocal relationship can be nurtured, which integrates the city as part of dynamic landscapes and regional ecosystems

Ernstson H. et al (2010) Urban Transitions: On Urban Resilience and Human-

Dominated Ecosystems, Royal Swedish Society of Sciences, Springer

A Complexity Theory Approach to Resilient Cities• Multiple and changing threats, risks & challenges• Which are complex and cannot be effectively addressed with

linear approaches• Nor can they be addressed in isolation: need a holistic multi-

dimensional approach• Each policy will influence and change the other: they will co-

evolve• Identify the multi-dimensional problem space & co-create an

enabling urban environment• Security is not the exclusive responsibility of the State &

cannot be legislated top-down – need to involve stakeholders at multiple levels

• Need a multi-dimensional approach to resilient cities – underpinned by complexity theory

Thank you

Eve Mitleton-Kelly

E.Mitleton-Kelly@lse.ac.uk

http://www.lse.ac.uk/complexity