The Politics Of Public Space

by Low; Setha

• ISBN13: 9780415951395
• ISBN10: 0415951399
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2005-10-05
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Public spaces are no longer democratic places where all people are embraced and tolerated, but instead centers of commerce and consumption. Increasing privatization through collaborative public/private partnerships between municipalities and local businesses has transformed such places as Bryant Park and Union Square in the center of New York City into environments maintained by video surveillance and police control. Even city squares and village greens are no longer places for public discussion and casual loitering, but instead have become filled with regulated Green Markets, military re-enactments, and seasonal country fairs. The linkage between public space and the globalizing political economy deserves closer scrutiny because societal mobilization about public space influences the shape of civil society, and by extension, democratic participation. With the increased globalization of the public realm, the boundaries of communication and social practices are increasingly informed by multiple culturalsettings creating new forms of public space. Studies of public spaces are rarely comparative much less global in their scope. This book expands this focus of work on public space to include a consideration of the transnational--in the sense of moving people and transformations in the nation/state--to expand our vision of what a public space is and how our notion of the "public" has changed.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction: The Imperative of Public Space	1	(16)
Neil Smith
Setha Low
The Political Economy of Public Space	17	(18)
David Harvey
Building the American Way: Public Subsidy, Private Space	35	(14)
Dolores Hayden
Appropriating ``the Commons'': The Tragedy of Property Rights Discourse	49	(32)
Elizabeth Blackmar
How Private Interests Take Over Public Space: Zoning, Taxes, and Incorporation of Gated Communities	81	(24)
Setha Low
Power, Space, and Terror: Social Reproduction and the Public Environment	105	(18)
Cindi Katz
Geography of Fear: Crime and the Transformation of Public Space in Post-apartheid South Africa	123	(20)
Ashley Dawson
Clean and Safe? Property Redevelopment, Public Space, and Homelessness in Downtown San Diego	143	(34)
Don Mitchell
Lynn A. Staeheli
Index	177