Be Secure Feel Secure Journal 1: get an update about Piraeus' project for safe cities
BSFS project has completed its first year of implementation, while a global pandemic has changed how we approach urban projects.
This first year has been especially important to establish structures in terms of organization, data, and participation at different levels.
What has been done? What have been the obstacles? How has BSFS navigated these new scenarios?
Executive summary
This is the first journal of the Be Secure Feel Secure (BSFS) project since its start on 2020, led by the Municipality of Piraeus. The BSFS project is part of the UIA initiatives aiming to improve security in European cities.
Piraeus is a historical city, located in the Attica Region near Athens - only few kilometers to the south-west of the center of Athens. It is the largest & busiest port in Greece, and it is among the biggest European ports and the main hub connecting Europe, Asia and Africa. It is also among the most densely populated cities in Europe (15,065 citizens/km2). It is a boisterous zone, and like in many large cities, security is an important issue for its inhabitants. According to a recent poll to the inhabitants of Piraeus, security is among the top 3 problems of the city.
The urban threat landscape in Piraeus is mainly comprised by small scale crime (i.e. pickpockets, thieves), night crime activities, drug and cigarettes smuggling and immigrants’ trafficking. These events are hardly reported to the authorities due to the lack of transparency, cross-sectoral cooperation, and exploitation of cyber-physical flaws. The built environment is also in need of improvements, and thus has a negative impact on how the city is perceived. BSFS project aims to strengthen urban security and address the perception of security in the city by providing strategies & tools to link the main urban security stakeholders & facilitate their collaboration in physical-and-cyber space.
With this in mind, BSFS has defined the 2nd and 5th municipal departments within Piraeus as its areas of implementation.
