More fear, less walking: taking a walk in fortified housing environments in urban Mexico

Abstract

Violence has worsened in Mexico in the last decade, and it is currently pervasive in most urban areas. More than 30% of Mexicans say that they have refrained from walking outside or taking a taxi. We tried to understand how households that are living with this security crisis altered their quotidian travel behaviour. We thus analysed some official statistics, and carried out a survey in non-central parts of Guadalajara Metropolitan Area, where crime indicators were particularly dire. Logistic regressions were applied to know if households that perceived their neighbourhoods as insecure exhibited different travel behaviour than households in secure areas. Our research showed that socioeconomic factors were less relevant in explaining travel behaviour in insecure areas than in secure areas. On the contrary, territorial factors became significant in such explanation in insecure areas. Most of the literature has related violence and travel behaviour by studying how the design of specific places as transport facilities or surrounding areas could induce fear of crime and hamper the use of public transport. Instead, our research suggested that violence extended in greater areas as blocks and neighbourhoods should be taken into account in countries afflicted by crises of violence. In such countries, public security measures appeared as an essential precondition to discussions on modal change or on sustainable public transport development.