Public Space

Public space has many different meanings but usually is thought of as a place that is created and maintained by a government entity for the benefit of the community and that ideally can be used regardless of one's economic or social condition. Typical examples include parks, roads, town squares, sidewalks, and public beaches. Some privately owned spaces, such as shopping malls and sidewalk cafes, give the appearance of public spaces because of community and social interaction that is common in such places. But these semipublic spaces may limit entry to some people based on the owners' discretion or the ability to pay. In the case of shopping malls, the public is invited to experience the space as potential consumers.

When it comes to the built environment in cities, public space has been an essential subject for architects, urban designers, and planners for centuries. The definition of public space in this context, which traditionally has meant streets, squares, and parks in an urban setting, is a topic of lively debate. These spaces are part of the public domain, meaning all places taken together that are perceived as public—streets, squares, and parks as well as privately owned collective spaces that function as public spaces. During the time of the Roman Empire, massive public domains were created for entertaining the urban masses, including chariot races, theatrical and musical performances, wild beast hunts, mock sea battles, public executions, and gladiatorial combat. During the 19th century, Napoleon's prefect of Paris, Georges Haussmann, created large public domains by blasting through the congested spaces of the old medieval city to construct the long, wide boulevards for which Paris is famous today. During the late 20th century, under the guise of modernist visions of urban renewal, [Page 389]planners in many large U.S. cities razed entire neighborhoods to create a world of highways, parks, and other accommodations designed for public use.

Public space can also be coded as masculine space. This division of male space as public and female space as private became especially pronounced during the Industrial Revolution, when gendered divisions of labor began to emerge that saw men entering the public realm to work for salaried wages and women staying home to provide a refuge to which men would return after facing the trials and temptations of the city. Public spaces are where social interaction takes place and where the conduct of business was seen as a cultural norm set aside exclusively for men. Women, generally portrayed as emotional, unstable, and weak, had no place in the public spaces of the city; instead, they were relegated to “feminine” domestic spheres of privacy such as the home. This public–private division reflected a male-dominated hierarchy that saw traditional women's roles as keepers of family and morality. Today, these divisions are not as clear, but they still play a role in contributing to a spatial entrapment of women that defines many public spaces.

Public space often is seen as inclusive of everyone, where interaction between people is spontaneous and nonpolitical. But, in practice, this is rarely the case. Public spaces can be sites of political protest and struggle, where conflict often is inevitable. For example, Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, has had a long history as a site of political protest, most recently in 1989 when thousands of people took control of the square demanding democratic and cultural reform. In many ways, this public space represents the symbolic heart of the power of the Chinese government, where a loss of control meant a massive government crackdown in 1989 in which hundreds of people were killed and many more were imprisoned. Tiananmen Square is but one example of a long worldwide history of various public spaces playing a role as geographic sites of resistance. These spaces often are used to challenge the powerful by providing a venue to give a voice to the excluded, dominated, and oppressed in society.

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