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Exploratory walks were created in Montreal, Canada by METRAC2 as a part of preventive policies on the violence against women and children in the beginning of 1990’s. Since that the approach has been broadened into a general tool for the decision makers to gain “user knowledge” on the city, and vice versa, for the residents to pass their experiences straight to the people in charge.
Advantage of the walks is in the situational and participative approach it offers for analysing and mediating the neighbourhoods’ safety and security issues. Safety and security walks bring into focus the physical environment, street lights, litterbins, general conditions of public spaces, but also broader social aspects. The residents’ individual sense of safety and the situational angle, time of day and period for instance, are highlighted.
An analysis of Université Libre de Bruxelles on exploratory walks, pointed to the need for tools with which to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of everyday urban life. “Local politicians and people in charge lean too often on aerial views on cities and quantitative analyses rather than on the perspective from the streets”. In Gothenburg, ....
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