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Reclaiming public space

Author

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  • Judit Bodnar

Abstract

Public space is partly what makes cities, and as such it has been at the core of urban studies and many disciplines ranging from sociology, geography, political science, anthropology to planning, architecture, design and philosophy. As one of the most multidisciplinary journals in the field, Urban Studies has been instrumental in exposing the controversies of public space during its 50 years of publication. A careful search through the archives of the journal, however, reveals that this interest has been rather uneven. While in the period before the 1990s a mere six articles dealt with aspects of public space, there has been a remarkable upsurge since then, which resulted in close to 300 articles. Somewhat paradoxically, the widely pronounced death of public space in the early 1990s thus marked the beginning of an extended debate on the topic of public space itself. This Virtual Special Issue (VSI) sets out to reinvigorate the debate once more in a critical synthesis of the important points that set the terms of the discussion and still reverberate in urban studies, by hoping to inspire new directions which touch on many disciplines. Using the death of public space as a counterpoint, the introductory article by Judit Bodnar reflects on the ‘life’ of public space, its cycles, forms and locations. It reviews the intellectual history of the main controversies that have kept discussions of public space alive, and further argues that attention to tensions, variations and comparisons can both reorient some of the fundamental questions of the debate itself and suggest research agendas for the future. The collection of 15 articles reflects first on the nature and specificity of public space, its historicity, its relationship to democratic politics, and then continues with the discussion of the most contested issues in the contemporary transformation of public space – privatisation, commercialisation and securitisation. Geographical diversity in the collection is not a mere gesture of politeness in a confessedly Western/Northern-dominated urban scholarship; nor is it simply driven by a desire to state that there are differences in the way public space is conceived of and operates in various places. Thinking about informality in Latin America, state and class in India, commercialisation in Vietnam, or security in other than North American ‘Western’ cities is meant to disrupt general urban theory and the public–private distinction.

Suggested Citation

  • Judit Bodnar, 2015. "Reclaiming public space," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(12), pages 2090-2104, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:52:y:2015:i:12:p:2090-2104
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098015583626
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Alasdair Jones, 2021. "Public realm ethnography: (Non-)Participation, co-presence and the challenge of situated multiplicity," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(2), pages 425-440, February.
    2. Tali Hatuka & Eran Toch, 2017. "Being visible in public space: The normalisation of asymmetrical visibility," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(4), pages 984-998, March.
    3. Kevin KH Tsang, 2023. "Distractions in a disruption: The soothing effect of the heritage bus ride during London Tube strikes," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(15), pages 3078-3091, November.
    4. Gössling, Stefan, 2016. "Urban transport justice," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1-9.
    5. Sifan Guo & Xuesen Zheng & Timothy Heath, 2022. "Research on the Design of Community Museums Based on the Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-17, August.
    6. Xuefan Zhang, 2017. "Identifying consumerist privately owned public spaces: The ideal type of mass private property," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(15), pages 3464-3479, November.
    7. Jenny Mbaye & Cecilia Dinardi, 2019. "Ins and outs of the cultural polis: Informality, culture and governance in the global South," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 578-593, February.
    8. Kostov Ivo & Palicki Sławomir & Rącka Izabela, 2017. "The Activities of Local Governments in the Revitalization of Public Space in Bulgaria and Poland," Real Estate Management and Valuation, Sciendo, vol. 25(1), pages 103-111, March.
    9. Tauri Tuvikene & Wladimir Sgibnev & Wojciech Kȩbłowski & Jason Finch, 2023. "Public transport as public space: Introduction," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(15), pages 2963-2978, November.
    10. Ryanne Flock, 2024. "Creating the spectacular city in everyday life: A governance analysis of urban public space in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(6), pages 1094-1110, May.
    11. Paul Milbourne, 2021. "Growing public spaces in the city: Community gardening and the making of new urban environments of publicness," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(14), pages 2901-2919, November.
    12. Bradley Rink, 2023. "Public space on the move: Mediating mobility, stillness and encounter on a Cape Town bus," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(15), pages 3027-3044, November.
    13. Marie Gibert-Flutre, 2022. "Rhythmanalysis: Rethinking the politics of everyday negotiations in ordinary public spaces," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 40(1), pages 279-297, February.
    14. Anna-Leena Toivanen, 2023. "On the move in the (post)colonial metropolis: The Paris Metro in Francophone African and Afrodiasporic fiction," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(15), pages 3061-3077, November.

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