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A public space is a place that is open and accessible to the general public. Roads (including the pavement),
public square A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
s,
park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are green spaces set aside for recreation inside towns and cities. ...
s, and
beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc s ...
es are typically considered public space. To a limited extent, government buildings which are open to the public, such as
public libraries A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants. There are five fundamen ...
, are public spaces, although they tend to have restricted areas and greater limits upon use. Although not considered public space, privately owned buildings or property visible from sidewalks and public thoroughfares may affect the public visual landscape, for example, by outdoor advertising. Recently, the concept of
shared space Shared space is an urban design approach that minimises the segregation between modes of road user. This is done by removing features such as kerbs, road surface markings, traffic signs, and traffic lights. Hans Monderman and others have sugg ...
has been advanced to enhance the experience of pedestrians in public space jointly used by automobiles and other vehicles. Public space has also become something of a touchstone for
critical theory A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from s ...
in relation to
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
,
urban geography Urban geography is the subdiscipline of geography that derives from a study of cities and urban processes. Urban geographers and urbanists examine various aspects of urban life and the built environment. Scholars, activists, and the public have ...
,
visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...
,
cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...
, social studies and
urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban d ...
. The term 'public space' is also often misconstrued to mean other things such as '
gathering place A gathering place is any place where people are able to congregate. Gathering places may be public; for example, city streets, town squares, and parks; or private; for example, churches, coffee shops, stadiums, and theaters. Examples of gatherin ...
', which is an element of the larger concept of social space. Public spaces have often been valued as democratic spaces of congregation and political participation, where groups can vocalize their rights.
Commons The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons c ...
are early examples of public space. Malls, regardless of private ownership percentage, are examples of 'public space' since no fees or paid tickets are required for entry. However most indoor shopping malls and strip malls are private property and subject to the rights of the owners. Filming in public spaces is legal, but shopping malls are privately owned properties and often require permission for photography and video.


Use of public spaces


Right to common passage

In Nordic countries, like Norway, Sweden, Finland, and also Estonia, all nature areas are considered public space, due to a law, the '' allemansrätten'' (the right to common passage).


Restrictions on state action in public spaces in the United States

In the United States the right of the people to engage in speech and assembly in public places may not be unreasonably restricted by the federal or state government. The government cannot usually limit one's speech beyond what is reasonable in a public space, which is considered to be a public forum (that is, screaming epithets at passers-by can be stopped; proselytizing one's religion probably cannot). In a private—that is, non-public—forum, the government can control one's speech to a much greater degree; for instance, protesting one's objection to medicare reform will not be tolerated in the gallery of the United States Senate. This is not to say that the government can control what one says in their own home or to others; it can only control government property in this way. The concept of a public forum is not limited to physical space or public property, for example, a newspaper might be considered a public forum, but see forum in the legal sense as the term has a specific meaning in United States law. Parks, malls, beaches, waiting rooms, etc., may be closed at night. As this does not exclude any specific group, it is generally not considered a restriction on public use. Entry to public parks cannot be restricted based upon a user's residence.


Social norms in public spaces

In some cultures, there is no
expectation of privacy Expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is related to, but is not the same as, a ''right to privac ...
in a public space, however civil inattention is a process whereby individuals are able to maintain their
privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of ...
within a crowd.


Controversy regarding restrictions on use

Public space is commonly shared and created for open usage throughout the community, whereas private space is owned by individuals or corporations. The area is built for a range of various types of recreation and entertainment. The physical setting is socially constructed, which creates a behavior influence. Limitations are imposed in the space to prevent certain actions from occurring—public behavior that is considered obnoxious or out of character (i.e., drug and alcohol consumption, urinating,
indecent exposure Indecent exposure is the deliberate public exposure by a person of a portion of their body in a manner contrary to local standards of appropriate behavior. Laws and social attitudes regarding indecent exposure vary significantly in different ...
, etc.)--and are supported by law or
ordinance Ordinance may refer to: Law * Ordinance (Belgium), a law adopted by the Brussels Parliament or the Common Community Commission * Ordinance (India), a temporary law promulgated by the President of India on recommendation of the Union Cabinet * ...
. Through the landscape and spatial organization of public space, the social construction is considered to be privately ruled by the implicit and explicit rules and expectations of the space that are enforced. Whilst it is generally considered that everyone has a right to access and use public space, as opposed to private space which may have restrictions, there has been some academic interest in how public spaces are managed to exclude certain groups - specifically homeless people and young people. Measures are taken to make the public space less attractive to them, including the removal or design of benches to restrict their use for sleeping and resting, restricting access to certain times, locking indoor/enclosed areas. Police forces are sometimes involved in moving 'unwanted' members of the public from public spaces. In fact, by not being provided suitable access, disabled people are implicitly excluded from some spaces.


As a site for democracy

Human geographers have argued that in spite of the exclusions that are part of public space, it can nonetheless be conceived of as a site where democracy becomes possible.
Geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...
Don Mitchell has written extensively on the topic of public space and its relation to democracy, employing
Henri Lefebvre Henri Lefebvre ( , ; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of s ...
's notion of the right to the city in articulating his argument. While democracy and public space don't entirely coincide, it is the potential of their intersection that becomes politically important. Other geographers like Gill Valentine have focused on
performativity ''Performativity'' is the concept that language can function as a form of social action and have the effect of change. The concept has multiple applications in diverse fields such as anthropology, social and cultural geography, economics, gen ...
and visibility in public spaces, which brings a theatrical component or 'space of appearance' that is central to the functioning of a democratic space.


Privatization

A privately owned public space, also known as a privately owned public open space (POPOS), is a public space that is open to the public, but owned by a private entity, typically a commercial
property developer Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of developed land or parcels to others. R ...
. Conversion of publicly owned public spaces to privately owned public spaces is referred to as the
privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
of public space, and is a common result of
urban redevelopment Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of bligh ...
. Beginning roughly in the 1960s, the privatization of public space (especially in urban centers) has faced criticism from citizen groups such as the
Open Spaces Society The Open Spaces Society is a campaign group that works to protect public rights of way and open spaces in the United Kingdom, such as common land and village greens. It is Britain's oldest national conservation body and a registered charity. Foun ...
. Private-public partnerships have taken significant control of public parks and playgrounds through conservancy groups set up to manage what is considered unmanageable by public agencies. Corporate sponsorship of public leisure areas is ubiquitous, giving open space to the public in exchange for higher
air rights Air rights are the property interest in the "space" above the earth's surface. Generally speaking, owning, or renting, land or a building includes the right to use and build in the space above the land without interference by others. This lega ...
. This facilitates the construction of taller buildings with private parks. In one of the newer U.S. incarnations of the private-public partnership, the business improvement district (BID), private organizations are allowed to tax local businesses and retail establishments so that they might provide special private services such as policing and increased surveillance, trash removal, or street renovation, all of which once fell under the control of public funds.


Semi-public spaces

A broader meaning of public space or place includes also places where everybody can come if they pay, like a
café A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-c ...
,
train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...
, or
movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...
. A
shop Shop or shopping refers to: Business and commerce * A casual word for a commercial establishment or for a place of business * Machine shop, a workshop for machining *"In the shop", referring to a car being at an automotive repair shop *A wood ...
is an example of what is intermediate between the two meanings: everybody can enter and look around without obligation to buy, but activities unrelated to the purpose of the shop are at the discretion of the proprietor. The
hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...
s and streets (including
skyway A skyway, skybridge, skywalk, or sky walkway is an elevated type of pedway connecting two or more buildings in an urban area, or connecting elevated points within mountainous recreational zones. Urban skyways very often take the form of enclo ...
s) in a
shopping center A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...
may be declared a public place and may be open when the shops are closed. Similarly for halls,
railway platform A railway platform is an area alongside a railway track providing convenient access to trains. Almost all stations have some form of platform, with larger stations having multiple platforms. The world's longest station platform is at Hubbali ...
s and
waiting room A waiting room or waiting hall is a building, or more commonly a part of a building or a room, where people sit or stand until the event or appointment for which they are waiting begins. There are two types of waiting room. One has individuals ...
s of
public transport Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typi ...
; sometimes a travelling ticket is required. A
public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants. There are five fundamen ...
is a public place. A
rest stop A rest area is a public facility located next to a large thoroughfare such as a motorway, expressway, or highway, at which drivers and passengers can rest, eat, or refuel without exiting onto secondary roads. Other names include motorway serv ...
or
truck stop A truck stop, known as a service station in the United Kingdom, and a travel center by major chains in the United States, is a commercial facility which provides refueling, rest (parking), and often ready-made food and other services to moto ...
is a public space. For these "semi-public" spaces stricter rules may apply than outside, e.g. regarding
dress code A dress code is a set of rules, often written, with regard to what clothing groups of people must wear. Dress codes are created out of social perceptions and norms, and vary based on purpose, circumstances, and occasions. Different societies a ...
, trading,
begging Begging (also panhandling) is the practice of imploring others to grant a favor, often a gift of money, with little or no expectation of reciprocation. A person doing such is called a beggar or panhandler. Beggars may operate in public pla ...
,
advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
,
photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...
,
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
, riding
rollerskate Roller skates, are shoes or bindings that fit onto shoes that are worn to enable the wearer to roll along on wheels. The first roller skate was an inline skate design, effectively an ice skate with wheels replacing the blade. Later the "quad s ...
s,
skateboard A skateboard is a type of sports equipment used for skateboarding. They are usually made of a specially designed 7-8 ply maple plywood deck and polyurethane wheels attached to the underside by a pair of skateboarding trucks. The skateboarder ...
s, a
Segway The Segway is a two-wheeled, self-balancing personal transporter invented by Dean Kamen and brought to market in 2001 as the Segway HT, subsequently as the Segway PT, and manufactured by Segway Inc. ''HT'' is an initialism for "human transp ...
, etc.


Public space in design theory

Public space, as a term and as a concept in design, is volatile. There is much conversation around what constitutes public space, what role it plays, and how design should approach and deal with it.


Historical shift

Historically, public space in the west has been limited to town centres, plazas, church squares, i.e. nearly always engineered around a central monument, which informs the program of the space. These spaces acted as the '
commons The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons c ...
' of the people; a political, social and cultural arena. Of the thirteen colonies that became the United States, three were comprehensively planned with integrated physical, social, and economic elements. These planned colonies of Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Georgia each placed emphasis on public space, in particular the public square. The plan for Georgia, known as the
Oglethorpe Plan The Oglethorpe Plan is an urban planning idea that was most notably used in Savannah, Georgia, one of the Thirteen Colonies, in the 18th century. The plan uses a distinctive street network with repeating squares of residential blocks, commercial ...
created a unique design in which a public square was created for every ward of forty residential lots and four civic or commercial lots. The design has been preserved in the
Savannah historic district Savannah Historic District may refer to: *Savannah Historic District (Savannah, Georgia), a National Historic Landmark district in Georgia * Central of Georgia Railroad: Savannah Shops and Terminal Facilities, Savannah, Georgia, a historic district ...
.
Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere. Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wo ...
' concept of the
public sphere The public sphere (german: Öffentlichkeit) is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. A "Public" is "of or concerning the ...
links its emergence with the development of democracy. A good example of this is the
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...
projects. The New Deal was a brief period in the US under Franklin Delano Roosevelt's government that produced a huge number of public works in an economic effort to boost employment during the depression. The result, however, was more than this. They constituted a legacy of what has been called the cultural infrastructure underlying American public space. The New Deal projects have been credited with significantly contributing to the quality of American life and encouraging unity between all aspects of the community. It has been recently argued, however, that the democratic ideal of public life through the use of public space has deteriorated. As our cities accelerate towards segregation (social, economic, cultural, ethnic), the opportunity for public interaction is on the decline. John Chase writes, "The importance of voluntary and obligatory participation in civic life has been usurped by the consciousness of the arbitrary nature of assigned cultural meanings and by the increasingly important role that consumption of goods and services plays in the formation of individual identity."


Modern critique

Modern architectural critics have lamented on the 'narrative of loss' within the public sphere. That is, modern society has withdrawn from public life that used to inform city centres. Political and social needs, and forums for expression, can now be accessed from the home. This sentiment is reflected in Michael Sorkin's and Mike Davis' declaration of "the end of public space" and the "destruction of any truly democratic urban spaces." Another side of the debate, however, argues that it is people who apply meaning to public space, wherever it may be. It has been suggested that the concepts of public, space, democracy, and citizenship are being redefined by people through lived experience.Margaret Crawford. 1995, "Contesting the Public Realm: Struggles over Public Space in Los Angeles", Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Sep, 1995) pp. 4-9 Discussion has surfaced around the idea that, historically, public space has been inherently contradictory in the way that it has always been exclusive in who has been able to participate. This has caused the "counterpublics", as identified by Nancy Fraser, to establish their own public spaces to respond to their own concerns. These spaces are in constant flux, and in response, its users restructure and reinterpret physical space. An example of this is in the African-American neighbourhood,
Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles Baldwin Hills is a neighborhood within the South Los Angeles region of Los Angeles, California. It is home to Kenneth Hahn State Regional Park and to Village Green, a National Historic Landmark. History 19th century Baldwin Hills and other ...
. Here, a parking lot has evolved into a scene of intense commercial and social activity. Locals gather here to meet and socialise, sell and consume goods. The example has been used to illustrate that the historical ideal of fixed public space around a monument is not viable for a contemporary diverse social range as "no single physical space can represent a completely inclusive 'space of democracy'."


Art in public space

This sense of flux and change, informs how contemporary public art has evolved. Temporal art in public spaces has been a long established practice. But the presence of public art has become increasingly prevalent and important within our contemporary cities. Temporal public art is so important because of its ability to respond to, reflect, and explore the context which it inhabits. Patricia Phillips describes the "social desire for an art that is contemporary and timely, that responds to and reflects its temporal and circumstantial context." Public art is an arena for investigation, exploration and articulation of the dense and diverse public landscape. Public art asks its audience to re-imagine, re-experience, re-view and re-live. In the design field, a heavy focus has been turned onto the city as needing to discover new and inspired ways to re-use, re-establish and re-invent the city, in step with an invigorated interest in rejuvenating our cities for a sustainable future. Contemporary design has become obsessed with the need to save the modern city from an industrialized, commercialized, urban pit of a death bed.


Approaching urban design

Contemporary perception of public space has now branched and grown into a multitude of non-traditional sites with a variety of programs in mind. It is for this reason that the way in which design deals with public space as a discipline, has become such a diverse and indefinable field. Iris Aravot puts forward an interesting approach to the urban design process, with the idea of the 'narrative-myth'. Aravot argues that "conventional analysis and problem solving methods result in fragmentation...of the authentic experience of a city... ndsomething of the liveliness of the city as a singular entity is lost." The process of developing a narrative-myth in urban design involves analysing and understanding the unique aspects of the local culture based on Cassirer's five distinctive "symbolic forms".Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (New York: Bantam, 1970) They are myth and religion, art, language, history and science; aspects often disregarded by professional practice. Aravot suggests that the narrative-myth "imposes meaning specifically on what is still inexplicable", i.e. the essence of a city.


See also


References


Bibliography

* Sonia Curnier (2023). ''Universal Singular. Public Space Design of the Early 21st Century.'' Basel/Berlin/Boston: Birkhäuser Verlag, ISBN 978-3-0356-2094-8. * Hoidn, Barbara. “Demo:Polis –The Right to Public Space” in Tom Bieling (Ed.): Design (&) Activism: Perspectives on Design as Activism and Activism as Design, Milano: Mimesis, 2019, p. 87–96 * Illegal to be Homeless. National Coalition for the Homeless (2004). * Maasik, Sonia, and Jack Solomon. Signs of Life in the USA Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. * Malone, K. "Children, Youth and Sustainable Cities". Local Environment 6 (1). * "Conclusions of the International Seminar on the Planning of Used Spaces in Towns", in: ''Monumentum'' (Louvain), Vol. 18–19, 1979, pp. 129–135.


External links

*
European Archive of Urban Public SpaceProject for Public Spaces
{{Authority control Community building