The Social Production of Public Space: a Lack of Consensus

Data, Habidatum, High Density, Politics and economics, Urban Paradigms

Active Public Spaces, Citizen interaction, Citizens, City of commons, Community, Consulting community, Essay, Future Urban Legacy Lab, Political & Economic Approach, Public management, Public Space, Social process, Society, Spatial definition, Territorial Approach, Urban design, Urban Legacy, Urban Paradigms, Urban process

Originally published at Future Urban Legacy Lab

There is a lack of consensus on the definition of public space, primarily due to the ever-changing management that public space has received throughout history. Nonetheless, some features of public space have survived: it allows strangers to meet (Jacobs, 1992; Lofland, 1973), and it allows free expression of citizenship (Houssay-Holzschuch & Thébault, 2017; Gehl, 2014); thus, it has always been the place where peoples’ political determination, plurality, and conflict materialise.