Public space and the geography
of the modern city
Peter G. Goheen
Department of Geography, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada
Progress in Human Geography 22,4 (1998) pp. 479 - 496:
Abstract:
Public space is often seen as problem space in the modern city: it is now as it has always been a space of contention. It is the visible and accessible venue wherein the public ± comprising institutions and citizens acting in concert ± enact rituals and make claims designed to win recognition. This article discusses two theses which regard the public realm in the modern city from very different perspectives. It then seeks to understand the strikingly contrary conclusions about the public sphere by exploring several of the issues which proponents of the two viewpoints interpret differently.
Public space in the modern city is charged with meaning and with controversy. The space in question is that which the public collectively values ± space to which it attributes symbolic significance and asserts claims. The values attaching to public space are those with which the generality of the citizenry endows it. Citizens create meaningful public space by expressing their attitudes, asserting their claims and using it for their own purposes. It thereby becomes a meaningful public resource. The process is a dynamic one, for meanings and uses are always liable to change. Renegotiation of understandings is ongoing; contention accompanies the process.
There is general agreement on the concept of the public itself; the words chosen by two of the principal protagonists to characterize the public are strikingly similar. For one the public is `not only a region of social life located apart from the realm of family and close friends, but also . . . [the] realm of acquaintances and strangers' (Sennett, 1992: 17). For another, the `defining characteristics of urban public space [are] proximity, diversity, and accessibility' (Zukin, 1995: 262).
There are in the current urban literature two highly contrasting assessments of the significance of public space to the conduct of public life in the modern city. One view proceeds from the premise that the public sphere has been radically devalued as a powerful social and political ideal in the modern city. In this interpretation, which I will examine with reference to the writing of Richard Sennett, the interest of the citizenry in public space has diminished as it has withdrawn from active participation in debates on public issues. For some, this expresses the conflict of capitalism with the citizenry's collective rights. A competing interpretation emphasizes the continuing significance of public space as the preferred arena where groups of every description can achieve public visibility, seek recognition and make demands. In this perspective, which I will define with reference to the writing of Philip Ethington and Sharon Zukin, urban public space reflects in a particularly creative way the changes and continuities that characterize a dynamic urban public life which reflects both celebration and contention. Proponents of this view focus on understanding the changing repertoire of public rituals and politics enacted there. In this article my two principal aims are to explore these conflicting theses on the importance of urban public space and to assess the bases for reaching opposing conclusions about the significance of public space in the modern city.
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