Determinants of safety and liveability in Kumasi and Tamale Metropolitan Areas in urban Ghana

Abstract

This article examines the determinants of residents’ perception of local level safety of life and property in an environment of rapid urbanisation and limited governments’ efforts to adequately secure urban Ghana. In a survey of 1,335 respondents, 54 key informants and 12 focus group discussions, the results, from binary logistic regression and thematic analyses, indicate a generally safe urban space but varied individual and neighbourhood level determinants of safety of life and property. However, there is no statistically significant difference in the determinants and construction of safety across the three socio-economic neighbourhoods in the metropolises partly because of blur territoriality between settlements in the cities. The paper recommends collaboration between home/land owners and urban planners as one of the surest way of improving neighbourhood boundaries and perception of safety.

Keywords: Urbanisation, Neighbourhood, Safety, Life and Property, Built Environment, Urban Ghana