The impact of nature-based solutions on perceptions of safety in public space

Concerns around personal safety in public spaces constrain citizens' time-space access to opportunities of employment, schooling, socializing, and recreation. One widely promoted strategy for reducing fear of crime is through the transformation of the built environment. While policy efforts have focused on creating urban environments that target the conscious experience of fear of crime, Schachter-Singer's Two Factor Theory proposes that alterations of a person's emotional physiological expression could also reduce the emotional experience of fear. This study explores whether Nature-Based Solutions [NBSs] – a strategy that reduces the emotional expression of stress – can lead to reductions in fear of crime, and how this approach compares with two widely used criminology strategies tackling the emotional experience – Broken Windows Theory [BWT] and Eyes on the Street [EOS]. To test this, an image-based randomized control trial with 494 participants was conducted in 2021. Randomly assigned control and treatment images simulating each built environment strategy were viewed and ranked by participants according to perceived safety. The findings of this study suggest that all built environment strategies significantly increase the perception of safety in public spaces. NBSs are shown to be effective built environment strategies for increasing perceived safety, with an effect comparable to the experience-focused EOS and BWT strategies. Our results suggest that NBSs should be included as part of the safety-enhancing urban policy toolkit.