Revolt in the 'Square': Spatial Modelling of Urban Stability in Modern Cities New insights and approaches for preventing conflict and violence

在政治舞台上，城市革命被认为是混合的、不可预测的，在某种程度上是偶然的。在某些情况下，政治不稳定、大规模抗议、骚乱、起义是对特定事件的反应，而在另一些情况下，政治不稳定、大规模抗议、骚乱和叛乱在一段时间内积聚势头，并在公共空间发生一系列进展和持不同政见者行为。该项目旨在探索、绘制和可视化贝鲁特烈士广场在三个主要预测事件(2006年、2011年和2015年)期间城市动荡的模式、模式和发展状况，以开发城市稳定的空间模型(SMUS)。利用涉及社会经济、政治和空间因素的五项城市稳定指标，将设计一个10分的城市动乱等级，以追踪和了解黎巴嫩在这一时期的空间动乱模式。该项目将重建历史事件和叙述，并使用时空分析将持不同政见者行为的频率与当时的社会政治和经济状况联系起来。这一办法稍后可适用于面临冲突和叛乱局势的其他城市/背景。对冲突起因及其对当地社区及其城市的破坏性后果的分析通常是从一个片面的角度提出的，即政府和负责维持秩序和法律的当局。但在这项工作中，我们的目的是带来和呈现其他目睹这些事件的参与者(非政府组织、社区、政治分析家等)的叙述和其他观点的另一面，以避免有偏见的分析，并走向更可靠的稳定预测因素。SMUS将使分析师、决策者、规划者和维权团体能够通过清晰的可视地图和辅助数据集追踪和反思以往的做法、升级模式、叛乱或动乱的时间跨度。该项目还将使政策制定者能够考虑这种模式和动乱行动对经济和物质上的干扰影响，不仅对城市的未来发展，而且对生活在提供最低限度基础设施服务方面面临巨大下降的当地社区，例如废物管理问题。我们计划在贝鲁特和贝尔法斯特举办跨学科和互动讲习班，汇聚一个包括人文和社会科学在内的多学科小组。该项目力求产生数据，使管理当局以及非政府行为者能够参与预防冲突，以系统的方法优先收集关于公共广场等城市空间如何从抗议活动变成冲突地点的信息。该项目将允许这些信息为政策提供信息，并支持社区利益攸关方了解可以采取哪些措施来允许抗议活动，但防止在如此重要的公共场所发生冲突。该项目将解释从贝鲁特可信的政府/国际机构和独立非政府组织获得的动乱指标和统计信息的可行性，以及流动和占领的空间模式。这将使动乱行动能够根据试点案例研究城市不断变化的政治局势进行核查和分析。这一项目将通过一系列讲习班和重点小组、视觉展示和一次会议得到支持和促进，以便有效地向政策制定者传达调查结果并最大限度地发挥影响的潜力，方法是倡导采取可执行的措施，增加无冲突抗议的机会。

Urban revolutions have been envisaged as hybrid, unpredictable and somewhat incidental in the political arena. In some cases, political instability, mass protests, riots, revolt erupts as a reaction to a particular event, while in others it gathers momentum over a period of time and following a sequence of progression and acts of dissidence in the public space. This project aims to explore, map and visualise patterns, modes, and state of development of urban unrest in Beirut Martyr Square during three major pretesting events (2006, 2011 & 2015) to develop a Spatial Model of Urban Stability (SMUS). Using five indicators of urban stability that involve socio-economic, political and spatial factors, a 10-point scale of urban unrest will be designed to trace and understand, through time and space, patterns of spatial unrest in Lebanon during this period. The project will reconstruct historical events and narratives and use spatio-temporal analytics to relate frequency of acts of dissidence to the social-political and economic condition of that time. This approach could later be applied to other cities/contexts facing situations of conflict and revolt. Analysis of causes of conflict and its damaging consequences on local communities and their cities are generally presented from a one sided point of view which is governments and authorities in charge of maintaining order and law. But in this work, we aims to bring and present another side of the narrative and other viewpoints of other players witnessing these incidents (NGOs, communities, Political analysts etc) in order to avoid biased analysis and move towards more reliable predictors of stability. The SMUS will enable analysts, decision makers, planners and activist groups to trace and reflect on previous practices, pattern of escalation, time span of revolt or unrest through intelligible visual maps and supporting datasets. The project will also enable policy makers to consider the economical and physical disturbing effects of such patterns and actions of unrest not only on the city's future development, but on the local communities living facing massive drop in providing minimal infrastructure services e.g. waste management problems. We plan to run interdisciplinary and interactive workshops in Beirut and Belfast to bring together a multidisciplinary team including the humanities and social sciences. This project seeks to generate data that can enable governing authorities as well as non-governmental actors to engage in conflict prevention to prioritize a systematic approach to the collection of information on how urban spaces such as public Squares becomes sites of conflict from protest. The project will allow such information to inform policies and support community stakeholders to an understanding of what might be done to allow protest but prevent conflict in such important public spaces. The project will explain indicators of unrest and the viability of statistical information derived from credible governmental/international agencies and independent NGOs in Beirut, along with spatial patterns of movements and occupation. This will enable unrest actions to be verified and analysed in line with changing political situations in the pilot case study city. This project will be supported and facilitated through a series of workshops and focus groups, visual displays and a conference to effectively communicate the findings to policymakers and maximise the potential for impact, through advocacy for the adoption of implementable measures that increase opportunities for protest without conflict.