**6. Conclusions**

This research aimed to explore the paradox of the phenomenon of FoC in areas that meet the principles of security planning. We initially hypothesised that 'high pedestrian density positively influences the feeling of FoC at a congested intersection with higher density than a certain threshold level'. To verify this hypothesis, we first identified the widely accepted theories of FoC and then established the link between the theories and the context prevailing in the city of Yaoundé. This approach enabled us to identify local specificities and to contextualise the di fferent variables that explain an individual's FoC. This then led us to adopt multi-level binary logistic regression analysis as an analytical tool in view of the nature of our variables and the objective of this study.

The key finding of the analysis is that pedestrian density may increase people's FoC in congested public spaces. In fact, the result revealed that the relationships between both key variables seem to be convex curves with the minimum value. The hypothesis is thus confirmed. One of the major implications of this result is the need to consider the density of pedestrians in the design of public spaces, not only in terms of comfort, but also in terms of reducing the feeling of FoC among users of these spaces.

Another significance of this study is that our analysis results confirm the theories of physical vulnerability and social networks and invalidate the theory of social vulnerability among the major FoC theories in the local context. Indeed, physically vulnerable people (particularly female, minors, and the elderly) or people with a weak sense of community were likely to express higher level of FoC. In contrast, people with lower income than the average tended to lower level of FoC unlike theoretical expectation.

The main di fficulty encountered in this study, which is also a limitation, was the data collection and potential selection bias of the sampling method. Due to the reluctance of many people to engage in the interview, some variables showed large gaps between the characteristics of population and sample groups. For example, 75% of the respondents were male. Furthermore, in the age category, only 10% of those surveyed were minors or elderly people.

Another major shortcoming was the limited number of study areas (only five intersections). Although this met the minimum requirement of multi-level analysis [48], the results of the analysis may seem to be unstable. There may be a possibility that the main findings might result from one single intersection's unobserved characteristics. Thus, this paper should be regarded as an exploratory study that identifies the type of the relationship between pedestrian density and the expressed FoC. To confirm this finding and increase its generalizability, we believe that the results of this study need to be compared to further research focusing on diverse study areas.

Lastly, due to the lack of automated pedestrian counting system in the city, and more generally the di fficulty of accessing modern data collection techniques (mobile applications, GPS, mobile phone data, etc.), we solely depended on the drone images when we measured pedestrian density. To overcome this, we recommend that future studies collaborate more with the city's security services, which have the advantage of having a pre-existing database as well as automated pedestrian counting system such as static/mobile sensors.

An additional valuable direction for further research would be to find exact density threshold. To create safer environments based on the results of this study, it is important to define the threshold above which the density of pedestrians in a space can be considered a factor in creating FoC among those who use that space. However, the research data and method used in this study did not perfectly allow us to define this threshold. In future research, this objective can be achieved by using virtual reality technologies, which make it possible to reproduce the urban environment virtually and thereby to test the di fferent density hypotheses by asking respondents to express their feelings when immersed in the virtual environment. This approach could also be beneficial in recreating di fferent types of physical environments that are fairly representative of urban diversity and thus take into account the various contexts. In addition, to find exact density threshold, it would be also desirable to use large random samples that cover various urban contexts. We hope that this research, combined with other related research in this field, will be used to establish a new concept: 'Improving the Urban Environment through Density Management' (IUETDM).

**Author Contributions:** S.-N.K. and P.E.T. contributed equally to this research. Conceptualization, S.-N.K. and P.E.T.; methodology, S.-N.K. and P.E.T.; software, S.-N.K. and P.E.T.; validation, S.-N.K. and P.E.T.; formal analysis, S.-N.K. and P.E.T.; investigation, P.E.T.; resources, S.-N.K. and P.E.T.; data curation, S.-N.K. and P.E.T.; writing—original draft preparation, S.-N.K. and P.E.T.; writing—review and editing, S.-N.K. and P.E.T.; visualization, P.E.T.; supervision, S.-N.K.; project administration, S.-N.K.; funding acquisition, S.-N.K. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2019S1A5A2A03052192) and the Chung-Ang University Research Grants in 2019.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors are grateful for the useful comments from the two anonymous reviewers.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
