This post contains an essay submitted as part of student course work for the Planning 100 "Introduction to Planning" course taught by me this year at Planning School, University of Auckland. The topic for the essay is: Referencing historical examples, discuss the origins of public space in cities, and consider what the needs are for public space in cities today. The essay is by Charlotte Moss, who has kindly given permission for it to be published here.
Public spaces are not simply locations, but are tools that promote certain ideologies and power structures. This essay shall focus on how these structures lead to geographies of inclusion and exclusion, through analysing not only historical examples, but also the more recent trends of suburbanisation and privatisation. Exclusion is the most pressing issue for all public spaces, as it creates and maintains boundaries of social inequalities. This essay shall provide understandings of public space exclusions, and seek solutions for these needs.
Public spaces are commonly defined as areas that are openly accessible, where people can go either individually or as a group to carry out various activities (Stone: 50). However, every public space is context-specific in its actual use. Public spaces are integral to the function of any city, with formal forms of public marketplaces being tracked as far back as 200BC in Mesopotamian cities (Stone: 52). More frequently, the Greek Agora is cited to be the first public space embodying modern definitions, a place where citizens could converse, trade, and enact political roles such as voting and discussion (Minton: 9). Public spaces are needed to ensure a balance between public and private needs (Stone: 3), and how a society utilizes their public spaces for this reflects unique ideals of private/public relationships. In essence, societies attempt to create public spaces to meet their own distinctive social, economic and political needs (Minton: 9), either through planning or by natural occurrence (Stone: 5). Minton points to Lefebvre’s theory that space is both a product and a means of production, to show the interrelationship between how public spaces are designed, use, maintained and reinforced (25). This inherent interrelationship means that few spaces have ever been fully accessible to the complete public (Minton: 9), as proven by the idealised Greek Agora excluding women, the poor and non citizens from public political participation.
Public spaces are constructed as exclusive in many different ways, and often influenced by other trends and forces. In order to understand the needs of public spaces today, the former trends that stimulated such current conditions need to be observed and understood. Post world war two, the western world experienced a dramatic shift in cityscapes and in the idealisation of home life. This was characterised by two key processes- privatisation and suburbanisation. The emergence of a multitude of public space forms, including malls, corporate plazas and playgrounds in the 1950s are intrinsically linked to these two processes (Stone: 67). This resulted in altered boundaries of exclusion and a different function of the public-private balance.
Public spaces are typically assumed to be owned and managed by the local government or the state, thereby theoretically ensuring accessibility for all citizens. However, as early as the enclosures of the Victorian era, state ownership of public space began to be replaced with private ownership of individual landlords (Minton: 10). Enclosures were devastating for the British labour populations, as communal land previously open to the public, were transformed into lands of ownership and production. This process shifted the societal needs, with other public places being established to provide public life, such as the opening of libraries, museums and parks in London during the 19th century, which were freely accessible to all citizens regardless of gender or class (Zukin: 129). Similarly, public spaces today are under a fundamental shift, where new societal aspirations are being recognised and need to be catered for.
Understanding the establishments of modern privatisation is crucial to understanding the needs of contemporary public spaces. This is a force that grew to dominance during the neoliberal era, which emphasized privatisation of property, surveillance and management as key to economic efficiency (Collins: 517). New privatised owners often sought to transform public spaces into a profit landscape, by encouraging consumption or creating spaces to reflect their company’s power (Collins: 519). These landscapes are created to serve the owner’s needs rather than the citizen user, and such establishments have largely replaced previous communal areas such as squares or plazas (Stone: 5). Private ownership not only shapes the physical aspects of the ‘public place’, but also shifts the power of access and restrictions to the new individual owner, with critics arguing that this results in a higher level of control and higher levels of exclusion (Zukin: 128). Exclusion is usually targeted towards people who are seen to be threatening to social order or unable to contribute to the consumerist society, such as the homeless or the young (Zukin: 128), leaving them with no other formal public space to reside in. This leads to higher exclusion, and the clustering of social problems, creating ‘neighbouring ghettoised enclaves’ (Minton: 10).
As well as the displacement of social outcasts and an increased capacity for exclusion, privatisation of public gathering space has led to a homogenisation of aesthetics and use. Private public places are designed to attract consumers, requiring increased surveillance of product, and this increased control results in an ambience of sameness between all private-owned public spaces and a sense of sterility (Minton: 25). Areas are no longer created to be inclusive of the environment around them, but instead shape an environment that individuals can choose to fit in to, and even regulate themselves. This alteration of public space to privately owned public space is the root cause of widening inequalities (Minton: 25); the fundamental social problem of modern societies. Whilst privatisation has had a profound impact on how individuals use and conceptualise public space, suburbanisation has also played an important function. Advancing technologies (in particular the automobile) has led to greater mobility landscapes than were ever possible in historical and pre-industrial societies. Previous cities were compact and had high residential densities, but the introduction of the affordable car allowed rapid development of vast neighbouring territories to low density suburban development. Such expansions led to several outcomes that negatively impacted public spaces. The first was an increase in isolation as cars replaced incidental social occurrences, and privatised backyard space removed the need to seek public outdoor space (Stone: 5). Secondly, the rapid pace of suburbanisation led to a sprawl with lack of planning for public spaces, and changed the fundamental ideal of the aspiring individual from public engagement to private suburban comfort and security (Williamson: 81). Finally, any public places created within suburbs lacked the diversity and complexity of former public spaces, leading to lower engagement (Low: 34). It is clear from these two processes, that access and ownership are two critical aspects that shape any society’s public space.
These trends have led to an abundance of literature claiming that the public sphere is vanishing from modern societies. However, public spaces have rarely been completely accessible throughout history. For example, in the 1800s the act of begging was criminalised, as a method of actively removing such beggars from public spaces, resulting in a sense of dislocation and sanitisation of public space. Public spaces in the modern era are no longer as vital to citizens, with the emergence of private backyards and other social mediums (Stone: 8). Many public spaces have experienced a transformation, tailored to particular needs such as tourism, dining, or entertainment. This is a reaction to the new modern city structures and issues. Many public spaces have been placed under private ownership simply for preservation; to facilitate clean public spaces on minimal state budgets (Zukin: 127), at times of uncertainty and anxiousness of city dilapidation (Zukin: 130). A major example of this is the Union Square in New York, which has been privately managed since the 1980s to create a docile, safe sector amidst a chaotic city. Such spaces have served as a function for the public, and therefore cannot be considered to be expired or ‘dead space’. Rather, public spaces need constant re- evaluation and deliberation to tailor to a society’s altering and expanding needs.
To analyse the needs of public spaces in modern societies, we need to consider how binaries of inclusion and exclusion are developed, and how public spaces can be used to solve contemporary social and political issues. State-owned public areas do not necessarily lead to more appropriate social and political spaces, with critics pointing overdesigned public spaces that have inadequate funding for maintenance and end up underused and derelict (Stone: 17). Furthermore, both private and state owned public spaces are far too often constrained in their design, leading to underuse and a waste of potential. Some public spaces are completely constrained during parts of the year, such as New York’s Bryant Park which is used for business events for 3 months, and is inaccessible to the general public. Contemporary public spaces need to be reworked to target problems of exclusion and provide for a diverse range of people and functions. All citizens need to have the right to use such public spaces, despite the social position they are in (Collins: 518), which could be achieved through relaxed zoning, a stance on embracing diversity, or placing the management of public spaces back with the state or a not-for-profit organization. As well as embracing diversity, public spaces need to incorporate icons or significant events of the region (Collins: 517), to foster tolerance from a joint, collective history.
Public spaces need to encompass many spheres of life, and need to be assessed at the human level- not simply built under pre-determined assumptions (Stone: 87). This would mean that involvement at the local level would be crucial, as well as some involvement from the wider state (Williamson: 321), to ensure a responsible, meaningful and politically accessible space (Stone: 19). Public spaces cannot simply be built for economic growth; consumer-scapes must be incorporated in a way that does not disrupt tolerance and continue to polarise individuals. In essence, public spaces need to cover many functions- they must be comfortable to reside in, free for individuals to express beliefs, a place of socialisation or of relaxation, and a place where social, political, and economic activities may be carried out. They also must be maintained appropriately, with sufficient security to prevent criminal activity and serve for social justice (Collins: 521). The location of public spaces is also necessary to consider. Public spaces that promote acceptance and diversity are best when situated in dense urban surroundings, supported by efficient transport and a large system of individuals on the hinterland in residential or work spheres (Thompson: 62). This could be further aided by a reduction of busy roads, or automobile access, and more accessibility via walking, bicycles or skating. In conclusion, public spaces are complex settings which reflect the values and issues of the encompassing city. Public spaces have varied, both over time and between places, reflecting their own forms of exclusion and diversity. The goal for the contemporary city should be to learn from historical examples and create a functional, diverse and accessible city core which caters to the public’s economic, social and political needs. The issue of exclusion is important when considering any public space, as it both reflects and determines a region’s social issues. Therefore, planners of public realms must aim to mitigate instigators of exclusion, and shape a public space which will serve current and future needs.
Bibliography
Collins, D., & Shantz, B. (2009). Public spaces, urban. Amsterdam: Elsevier Ltd. 517-522. Sourced from: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/homepage.cws_home
Low, S. (2000) On the Plaza: The politics of public space and culture. USA: University of Texas Press
Minton, A. (2006). The privatisation of public space. London: The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Stone, Andrew. (1992). Public Space. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.
Taylor, M. (2011) The changing fortunes of ‘community’. Public policy in the community. UK: Palgrave Macmillan. 9-21.
Thompson, C.W. (2002) Urban open space in the 21st century. Landscape and Urban Planning. (60), 59-72.
Williamson, T. Imbroscio, D. Alporovitz, G. (2002) Making a Place for Community: Local democracy in a global era. Great Britain: Routledge
Zukin, S. (2010) Naked City: The death and life of authentic urban places. New York: Oxford University Press
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