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All over the world, millions of people live in buildings and neighbourhoods that follow the principles of Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and Le Corbusier: high-rise “residential machines” in parks reminiscent of green seas. Some of these have become very successful living environments, but in Europe and the USA, several neighbourhoods featuring this architectural design dream have become a social nightmare. Residents who were able to moved to more desirable neighbourhoods. This led to a high level of vacancy and crime and fear of crime have flourished, resulting in a stigma that is often long-lasting and difficult to repair. The pupose of this study is to learn from these experiences.

In this paper, two high-rise neighbourhoods, built in a Corbusier-like fashion and situated on the outskirts of major cities, are put under the evaluation spotlight: Bijlmermeer: located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with an abundance of landscaping, shrubbery, green fields and one high-density neighbourhood; and Bellvitge: located in Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain, looking less like a park and more like a city with open-air parking on ground level, and many small shops, bars and restaurants.

Both neighbourhoods faced enormous problems from crime, incivilities, disorder and drug abuse. Fear of crime and feelings of insecurity were high. Both governments reacted by investing huge sums of money. In Bellvitge, the investment was mainly in public transport, the public domain and new approaches in policing while keeping the high-rise buildings intact. In Bijlmermeer, a large regeneration project supported the demolition of two-thirds of all apartments and the neighbourhood was rebuilt in a low-rise fashion.

This paper outlines the history of both neighbourhoods and describes the solutions that were implemented. Important lessons can be learned regarding current high-rise neighbourhoods and about the learning capacity of urban designers and planners regarding urban management.

The paper suggests that urban planners, designers and managers are slow in learning from earlier mistakes. The hypothesis is that there is no clear method available to evaluate new urban planning designs by incorporating lessons from the success or failure of previous cases. This paper focuses on density, ownership and design to identify possible approaches to evaluate new high-rise estate plans.

The Western high-rise “wave” has faded away but nowadays has become a high-rise “tsunami” in Asia. Learning from European experience may be beneficial.

This paper aims to understand the delivery of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) across Europe – from European-wide procedures through national schemes to effective local strategies.

The findings come from a review of published literature and reports, case studies and site visits conducted primarily during COST Action TU1203 (2013-2016).

Innovative approaches and methods to integrate crime prevention into urban design, planning and management have been generated by multi-agency partnerships and collaborations at European, national and city levels. Methods and procedures developed by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) Working Group on “Crime Prevention through Urban Planning and Building Design” are pioneering. However, findings show that implementation is best achieved at a local level using methods and procedures tailored to the specific context.

In-depth research is required to appreciate subtle differences between local approaches and conceptual models developed to better understand approaches and methods.

Practitioners and academics working to prevent crime benefit from participation in focused, multi-agency collaborations that, importantly, facilitate visits to urban developments, discussions with local stakeholders responsible for delivery “on the ground” and structured and sustained exploration of innovations and challenges.

The authors hope that this paper will contribute to developing a new direction for CPTED practice and research that builds on significant progress in creating safer environments over previous decades.