Now that the public safety alarm has sounded in the streets, it is pertinent to ask what the feeling of security in the streets is made of. When garbage is scattered at the foot of the bins, when trains run graffiti-covered, when drivers of all kinds act as if a red or green traffic light were a mere non-binding opinion, when investment is made for the first-day photo and we forget about maintenance, when the usual shops are replaced by businesses not aimed at residents but at passers-by, when people have to leave the neighborhood because they can no longer afford it, the knots that socially bind us come undone, because the primacy of the common interest has been replaced by the law of the jungle, and we feel insecure.
We must therefore return to the need for public authorities, especially city councils, to prevent the physical degradation of public space. And alongside immediate factors such as incivility, vandalism, real estate predation, or organized crime, the primary source of insecurity is social inequalities that break any social contract.
Meanwhile, however, the street needs an order that social atomization into almost individual bubbles has externalized from the collective tribe to the uniformed power. But we don't see police. We see security cameras, we imagine there are more than there seem to be, we cross our fingers that their deterrent mission works, but the human element is increasingly rare to see in the streets. A car from the Mossos or the Guardia Urbana passes by from time to time, but we never see the faces of the officers. They are quick to appear when called, but perhaps by then the damage is already done. At a time when everything is screens, cameras, and conversations with robots, do we need to be reminded of the security that a police officer among the people provides in a democratic country?
