Privately owned Public Space

O LUGAR DO ESPAÇO PÚBLICO DE PROPRIEDADE PRIVADA NA CIDADE CONTEMPORÂNEA
RESUMO
Este artigo discute um tipo específico de espaço público: o “Espaço Público de Propriedade Privada” (tradução de “Privately Owned Public Space” ou POPS), originado da revisão de 1961 da legislação urbana de Nova Iorque, que concede benefícios legais de área construída aos edifícios que garantem espaços térreos para uso público. Atualmente, POPS podem ser encontrados, com regras semelhantes, em cidades como São Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Santiago, Hong Kong e Tóquio. No Brasil, a partir de 2013, a cidade de São Paulo passou a adotar em seu Plano Diretor Estratégico o termo “Fruição Pública” para espaços privados de uso público.
A discussão dos POPS se justifica pelas mudanças que as cidades têm passado nas últimas décadas, dadas pela reprodução de projetos urbanos de grande porte. Técnicas de ‘placemaking’ e ‘placemarketing’ têm criado lugares em regiões carentes de centralidade, “centros excêntricos”, como define Castello (2013), diluindo os limites entre público e privado.
O artigo apresenta o contexto disciplinar da discussão dos Espaços de Públicos de Propriedade Privada e discorre sobre experiências tipológicas. Os conflitos que ensejam na ordem urbana e o potencial de apropriação pública deste tipo de espaço são abordados na sequência. Conclui-se pela necessidade de um entendimento plural do que seja um sistema de espaços públicos, em atendimento à demanda crescente por lugares urbanos, já que a realidade das cidades conduz a que sejam aproveitadas todas as oportunidades para criação de espaços públicos qualificados. Talvez diante disto, autores como Ascher (2010), Carmona (2014) e Chung et al. (2001) definam novos parâmetros para a abordagem deste importante elemento urbano.

Palavras-chave: Espaço público. Espaço privado. Espaço Público de Propriedade Privada.
THE PLACE OF PRIVATELY OWNED PUBLIC SPACE IN THE CONTEMPORARY CITY
ABSTRACT
This article discusses a specific type of public space: the "Privately Owned Public Space" or POPS, originated from the New York Zoning Resolution Review of 1961, which granted Floor Area Ratio in exchange of spaces for public use. Currently, POPS can be found in cities like San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Santiago, Hong Kong and Tokyo. In Brazil, from 2013, the city of São Paulo adopted in its zoning resolution the term "Public Fruition” to private spaces designated for public use.
The discussion of POPS is justified by the changes that cities have experienced in recent decades, blurring the line between public and private, with the production of the city through large urban projects and the techniques of 'placemaking' and 'placemarketing' which have created places in regions without centrality, "eccentric centers", as defined Castello (2013).
This paper presents the disciplinary context of the discussion of Privately Owned Public Spaces and discusses typological experiences. Conflicts in the urban order and the potential for publicness in this kind of space are addressed next. The paper shows the need for a plural understanding of a public space system in response to growing demand for urban places. The cities reality points to the use of every opportunity for creating qualified public spaces and perhaps in respect to this scenario, authors such as Ascher (2010), Carmona (2014) and Chung et al. (2001) define new parameters for addressing the public space.
Keywords: Public space; Private space; Privately Owned Public Space

The purpose of this textbook is to teach real estate law not as some amalgamation of abstract, static legal concepts but, instead, to teach real estate law within the context of the dynamics of real estate development and finance, through a framework I have developed and refer to throughout the book as The Development Process. What is presented in this textbook is not what is taught in most American law schools, with curricula offering a range of individual, albeit related, topics, such as Real Property Law, Contracts, Federal Taxation, and Environmental Law, among others, that provide little context for law students as to how these disciplines intersect with and impact The Development Process.

Rather than offering in-depth discussions of law school subjects such as “servitudes” and “estates in land” in Real Property Law or “fraud in the inducement” in Contracts, this textbook instead offers a much broader treatment of real estate law as an overarching discipline impacting and driving the development and financing of real estate projects. This is done with considerable intention, to facilitate an understanding of the true breadth of the subject matter by graduate students seeking a master’s degree in real estate development and finance or an MBA with a concentration in real estate (to whom this textbook is specifically targeted), as well as to assist the real estate executive or professional in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of how real estate law impacts their endeavors.

Neither real estate development nor The Development Process is ever about just one thing: Real estate development is always about a thousand different things, big and small, occurring simultaneously; some within the developer’s control but many occurring independently of the developer and its project. Part of the allure, as well as the challenge, of real estate development—as a process and as a profession—is the need to keep a number of balls in the air at the same time, always knowing where each ball is and to where it is heading next. In this respect, real estate development and finance can be one of the most-rewarding—and most-maddening—professional endeavors one may pursue.

Resumo: Este documento artigo apresenta investigação sobre a possibilidade de ocorrência de lugares públicos em espaços privados comerciais, tipicamente relacionados como shopping centers. A noção de que as grandes cidades desenvolvem-se, desde meados dos século XX, como extensas áreas de tecido fragmentado e perderam sua condição de oferecer espaços públicos qualificados para o desenvolvimento da esfera pública propõe a questão de que uma rede de espaços privados possa suprir parte desta demanda. O artigo estabelece os padrões conceituais do entendimento clássico de espaço público e esfera pública, para introduzir a ocorrência de atividades públicas no interior privado dos shopping centers, finalizando por expor as contradições desta dicotomia público-privado. A avaliação final propõe que uma visão mais ampla que permita graus diversos de relação entre espaço privado e atividades públicas é necessária.
Palavras-chave: lugar; espaço público; shopping center.
Abstract: This paper presents research on the possibility of public places exist in commercial private spaces, typically listed as shopping malls. The notion that the bigger cities developed since the mid-twentieth century extensive areas of fragmented urban fabric and lost their condition to provide qualified public spaces for the development of the public sphere poses the question that a network of private spaces can supply part of this demand. The article sets out the conceptual patterns of the classical understanding of public space and public sphere to introduce the occurrence of public activities in the private inside the malls, finishing by exposing the contradictions of this public-private dichotomy. The conclusion proposes a broader view in with different degrees of relation between private space and public activities is necessary.
Key-words: place; public space; shopping center.

Les pratiques spatiales des hommes et des femmes à Sfax sont
conditionnées par les valeurs sociales patriarcales et par le temps social. Le centre ville est très peu fréquenté la nuit à cause de la mauvaise adaptabilité des aménagements urbains actuels au modernisme, de l’absence de la vie culturelle et de l’insécurité ressentie dans plusieurs lieux publics. La sphère domestique, qui est un espace de sécurité, s’élargit au-delà du foyer privé pour inclure la rue domestiquée, le quartier et les lieux d’enfance. Les femmes compensent l’appropriation de certains espaces publics par les hommes par une mutation des pratiques spatiales féminines du public vers l’espace domestique.
Mots clés : Espace public, espace privé, sphère domestique, pratiques spatiales,
cognition spatiale, le temps social, ancrage social, sécurité, insécurité, usage de
l’espace.

El presente ensayo analiza la proliferación de una de las categorías más significativas de espacios de uso público en el Japón metropolitano contemporáneo. El texto explora cuándo y por qué el gobierno comenzó a traspasar la producción de espacios públicos a actores privados, y reflexiona sobre cómo se han transforma- do estos espacios en el transcurso de los últimos cuarenta años, pasando de ser «espacios públicos muertos» a convertirse en «escenarios totales de trabajo y es- parcimiento». Resulta interesante observar que la transformación cualitativa de esos relevantes residuos de materia urbana fue, más que el resultado de la presión de la sociedad civil o de los planificadores gubernamentales en pro de la creación de entornos urbanos de alta calidad, el efecto de mecanismos del mercado que identificaron a los espacios públicos como medios importantes para valorizar locaciones específicas.

I am fortunate to have had broad range of professional endeavors in which I’ve engaged over the past 35 years. Additionally, as a function of my intellectual curiosity, commitment to lifelong learning, and a deep-seated need to share ideas and promote engagement on important topics, I have a comprehensive list of subjects in which my interest is sufficiently robust that any one subject among my stated research interests may, from time-to-time, become the subject of my teaching, publishing in popular media outlets, and/or formal research and publication endeavors.

My Research Statement is broken down into two sections: Completed and Pending Research and  Research Interests.

O pen spaces cover a broad range of sizes and types of areas from small pockets of parks, children's play areas, urban squares, sports fields to extensive green areas. The evidence indicates that these fulfil a range of functions in respect to physical activity, from active sports to passive seating, picnicking and as a venue for socialising for a range of age groups. Over the advent of time, the policy of evolution of open space is charted and common aspects such as open space hierarchies and open space standards are identified. It is clear that there is a long legacy of standards and approaches to the provision and design of open space, which is increasingly open to questions, are beginning to change.

This article discusses a specific type of public space: The Privately Owned Public Space, or POPS, which originated from the 1961 revision of the New York Zoning Resolution, offering legal incentives of increased floor area to buildings providing street-level spaces for public use. POPS with similar regulations can currently be found in cities such as San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Santiago, Hong Kong and Tokyo. In Brazil, from 2013, the city of São Paulo began to adopt the term " Public Use " for privately owned public spaces in its Strategic Planning Legislation. Changes to cities in recent decades through the spread of large-scale urban projects make this discussion of POPS timely. 'Placemaking' and 'placemarketing' techniques have created places in regions lacking in centrality, which Castello (2013) terms " eccentric centres " , diluting the boundaries between public and private. This article presents the disciplinary context of the discussion of Privately Owned Public Spaces and considers some typological experiences. It then addresses the conflicts they cause in the urban setting and the potential for public appropriation of this type of space. It concludes with the need for a plural understanding of what kind of system of urban spaces might meet the growing demand for urban places, given that conditions in cities are leading exploration of every opportunity for the creation of appropriate public spaces. Perhaps it is in the light of this that authors such as Ascher (2010), Carmona (2014) and Chung et al. (2001) have defined new parameters for dealing with this important element of the urban environment.
Published online in Portuguese on THESIS – REVISTA DA ANPARQ: http://anparq.web965.uni5.net/artigo.php?num=4&l=/revista-thesis/article/view/88

The aim of this research is to unravel and interrogate critically the recent histories of the production and reproduction of Castlefield, Manchester. This unravelling is accomplished theoretically through the historicised application of Lefebvre‘s spatial triad. Production of space histories and Castlefield‘s ‗regeneration‘ are revisited principally through archival and interview evacuations of the neglected years of the 1970s. Urban public space is seen as the key city synecdoche. The thesis argues against what is called the ‗dominant academic narrative‘: challenging the narrative where it ignores or downplays the role of counter-representations and counter-projects in the production of urban public space. The empirical research is based mainly on archival data and complimentary interview and visual data; the analyses are qualitative. Visual representations of space largely neglected in the literature are foregrounded throughout the empirical research. Spaces of representation and spatial practice are interrogated from the perspective of public space analysis which emphasises the importance of the contested nature of representations of space within the public sector and the vulnerable and unstable character of some official representations of space. The thesis therefore does not seek to reproduce what might be called a ‗traditional‘ Lefebvrian analysis which counter-poses repressive official representations of space against quotidian heroic, poetic spaces of representation. The research challenges oversimplified characterisations of Castlefield as a space simply of heritage, leisure and exclusive residential enclaves. A dynamic, complex spatial portrait is revealed whereby ludic, ‗natural‘ and abstract space rise and fall though intricate spatial layering as time unfolds. Urban differential space and ludic space are found to emerge through the interstices of abstract space as key outcomes of the contestation of space. The thesis concludes that the potential for differential urban public space exists through the production of new spaces and their diverse politicised appropriation.

The aim of this research is to unravel and interrogate critically the recent histories of the production and reproduction of Castlefield, Manchester. This unravelling is accomplished theoretically through the historicised application of Lefebvre‘s spatial triad. Production of space histories and Castlefield‘s ‗regeneration‘ are revisited principally through archival and interview evacuations of the neglected years of the 1970s. Urban public space is seen as the key city synecdoche. The thesis argues against what is called the ‗dominant academic narrative‘: challenging the narrative where it ignores or downplays the role of counter-representations and counter-projects in the production of urban public space. The empirical research is based mainly on archival data and complimentary interview and visual data; the analyses are qualitative. Visual representations of space largely neglected in the literature are foregrounded throughout the empirical research. Spaces of representation and spatial practice are interrogated from the perspective of public space analysis which emphasises the importance of the contested nature of representations of space within the public sector and the vulnerable and unstable character of some official representations of space. The thesis therefore does not seek to reproduce what might be called a ‗traditional‘ Lefebvrian analysis which counter-poses repressive official representations of space against quotidian heroic, poetic spaces of representation. The research challenges oversimplified characterisations of Castlefield as a space simply of heritage, leisure and exclusive residential enclaves. A dynamic, complex spatial portrait is revealed whereby ludic, ‗natural‘ and abstract space rise and fall though intricate spatial layering as time unfolds. Urban differential space and ludic space are found to emerge through the interstices of abstract space as key outcomes of the contestation of space. The thesis concludes that the potential for differential urban public space exists through the production of new spaces and their diverse politicised appropriation.

In recent years the issue of public space in urban Japan has won great prominence. Since 2002 for example accredited street artists and vendors (re)appear in parks and streets of Tôkyô as part of campaigns to promote Japan and its capital as attractive, bustling tourist destination. So-called 'Open Cafés' are proliferating in private plazas as well as public pedestrian malls, parks, or sidewalks in order to stimulate new public life in places were previously modernist paradigms of efficiency and functionality ruled such out, or to capitalise on a revival of outdoor life styles. Symbolic, beautified public spaces －parks, squares, promenades, waterfronts－ are created to endow identity to local communities, or to brand office complexes and whole business districts. The growing professional interest in the quality of public space stands in a dialectical relationship with the increasing body of literature on the subject and related burgeoning discourses on civil society, citizen participation, public sphere, and the very concept of Public. This thesis seeks to explore why there is such keen theoretical and practical interest in urban public space and the reasons for this changing focus on public space design and development. How have designers, developers and planning authorities approached public space in the past, and which factors have led to the current re-valuation? What are distinctive meanings of public space in Japan, and, how do those changing meanings influence its production, regulation and use? In order to account for the multiple actors and inanimate elements －texts, images of successful urban spaces－ which equally contribute to the discursive negotiation of public space, the study adopts Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a meta-theoretical framework. Much recent writing points out the social construction of public space with the consequence that values and meanings ascribed to it are never fixed but vary among cultures, places and over time. Nevertheless, when it comes to analysing it in non-Western contexts, often Western views are presumed, which make it difficult to describe relevant phenomena in their own right and against their own conceptual histories.
Chapter one deconstructs therefore such dominant Western understandings of public space and contrasts them with intrinsic Japanese meanings and the particular ways these influence the evolution of urban space. After arriving at a workable definition and illustrating its dynamic social construction, an analytical framework is proposed, which accommodates the diverse policies, ideas, and actors, which inform the physical production of public space, and which are exemplified in the subsequent parts of the study.
Chapter two takes a critical historic perspective on the genealogy of public space in urban Japan within the wider context of the urban governance system, planning culture and other socio-economic transformations, as current urban developments cannot be adequately understood without a firm knowledge of their particular institutional (formal regulations as well as informal social conventions and social practice), physical and historical background.
From the introduction of the first early-modern, western-style precedents －parks, sidewalks, squares, waterfronts－ over comprehensive, open space visions of regional park systems in the inter-war and early post-war period, unitarily used public space came under jurisdiction of highly specialised, non-cooperative, at times antagonistic government authorities, impeding a more comprehensive understanding. An exclusive idea of the public good further eliminated an increasing array of activities and the rampant motorisation dissolved it in insular spaces.
In recent years growing private influence and a growing number of successful local initiatives have led to a re-interpretation of public space and with it, the underlying very idea of the public. In global urban studies views prevail, which see mobile capital and multi-national corporations exerting a homogenising influence on urban space and lead to a worldwide convergence. As the guiding hypothesis of this research argues against such a priori simplifications, it looks in the second part into specific, influential projects, which promoted in their aggregation a re-definition of contemporary public space. In order to allow for a differentiated analysis of local and global, public, private or communitarian influences, the main part of the study is structured into three chief chapters:
Chapter three scrutinises groundbreaking, small scale projects, where local governments, residents, citizen activists, or external experts advanced unprecedented, alternative types of public spaces through new open planning processes, significantly deviating from established bureaucratic routines of former decades.
Chapter four looks at the growing private production of open spaces through incentive planning instruments, represented by an exemplary discussion of so-called privately owned public spaces (POPS). These are quantitatively highly significant and have been created in downtown areas since the late 1960s. In this form of public-private partnerships the public sector trades in the private production, ownership and management of publicly usable space for an incentive of bonus floor area bonus or other zoning concessions. Focusing on this specific type of public space doesn't simply serve as an end in itself. Its very appearance marked in fact a major turning point in urban governance, as the public sector relinquished its dominating role as sole provider of urban public space. Examining it allows therefore transcending conventional government-centred research frameworks by also appreciating values and meanings, attributed from the private side. As the real estate sector is most perceptive for changing socio-economic trends, it translates them into new built urban form following the logic of profit maximisation. Thus, the New Public Spaces of mix-use mega-developments like Ebisu Garden Place, Roppongi Hills, Shinjuku Southern Terrace, SIO Site Shiodome, Midtown or Marunouchi serve as indicators for established power structures as well as wider social trends of fusion of work and leisure, a longing for collective memory and shared narratives, a new awareness for environment and quality of life or the feminisation of urban space.
Chapter five takes a longitudinal, long-term perspective on the particular urban governance and planning culture of Yokohama City, one of Japan's most progressive local government, whereas the preceding two chapters focused on particular, innovative examples of new publicly and privately owned, publicly usable spaces. Since the 1960s a long-term strategic planning vision envisioned here a comprehensive reconquest of public pedestrian space under utilisation of private initiative for its realisation. Through intensive publication, initial deliberations in the public sphere of planning experts and later in the broader public, the integrated urban design approach exerted a strong influence on public space policies of other local governments, which finally added to a changed attitude of the national government towards the liveable city.
Chapter six summarises the findings of the preceding chapters and discusses the complex processes, which came to influence the production, management and use of urban public space, culminating in its current renaissance. While the quality of public space was important in early modernist planning during the 1920s and 30s, it fell into neglect in the post-war period. Scholars and local urban designers rediscovered quality public spaces as means for local identity promotion and participation in Machizukuri projects and beautification strategies during the 1960s and 70s. This was more and more taken up by the real estate sector for the creation New Public Spaces at large mix-use redevelopment schemes, were it served as distinguishing element in an increasing area competition, but also responded to changed socio-cultural values. In the struggle against the perceived loss of competitiveness of the world city Tôkyô vis-à-vis its burgeoning East Asian rivals, the government identified it also as means for city branding and image policies.

This draft section from the book:

Exploring the Production of Urban Space: Differential Space in Three Post-Industrial Cities

explores Henri Lefebvre's concept of the right to the city. Many Anglo-American researchers, activists and social movements
encounter right to the city ideas first through the English translation of
a Lefebvre essay in Lefebvre (1996). This provides a brief but powerful
explication of facets of the concept. Lefebvre always saw urban life
and urban space through a neo-Marxian practico-theoretical lens.
Importantly, his right to the city ideas have two aspects: first, abstract,
theoretical or strategic rights; and second, concrete, practical rights
(Aalbers and Gibb 2014: 208). They stress that chief among the abstract
rights is the ‘priority of use value’ in the production of space, that is, in
general terms cities should satisfy primarily the range of human needs
of city dwellers rather than create excess profit through neo-capitalist
accumulation. It is significant, but rarely remarked, that Lefebvre saw
the right to the city being asserted in the context of the struggle for
differential space.

Kentsel kamusal alanların ve müştereklerin sermaye odaklı dönüşümüyle, kent sosyo-ekonomik olarak ayrışmakta, çoğulluğunu, kullanım değerini, siyasi ve toplumsal işlevini yitirmekte ve çözülmekte. Asıl mesele tam da burada. Galataportgillere neden karşı çıkmamız gerektiğinin yanıtı da burada. Onların kentsel kamusal mekanları ve müşterekleri her istilalarında kent biraz daha daralmakta. 

https://www.pressreader.com/turkey/arredamento-mimarlik/20220311/282419877730734

Perhaps few other ideas have been more persevering in architecture or urban planning discourses over the past decades than ‘public space’. Ironically, its recent, expanded career as a central intellectual concept beyond those academic disciplines, concerned with the built environment, and its extensive use in professional and scholarly debates, in media and everyday language, didn’t help to lessen its semantic ambiguities (Gulick 1998, Nadal 2000). One substantial problem with the concept is its (mis-)conception as static and universal; as transcending the particularities of time, space, or culture, thus frustrating meaningful comparative discourses. As a result examining public space outside ones own cultural context may lead to early conclusions and normative distortions when observations do not match the preconceived repertoire of spatial archetypes, or familiar patterns of appropriation. Neil Smith reminds us thus that "(d)ifferent societies and different modes of production produce space differently; they produce their own kinds of spaces” (1998: 54). He argues that “specific societies and specific periods have distinctive spatial codes (… that) are integral to the social and spatial practices of a given place and period (…)” (ibid.). Consequently, public space is better conceived as a complex multi-dimensional notion, perpetually reproduced by local and global actors and discourses, shaped by hard and soft social institutions, as well as specific spatio-culturally induced systems of perception, interaction, representation, and language in a particular time and place. The job of theory and empirical enquiry is then elucidating the emergence, performance, and change of those spatial codes, constituting particular public space notions, rather than superimposing a priori views. Interestingly, international debates showed hitherto a strong bias toward Europe or North America —underplaying public space in non-western settings. Referring to the ultimately related and equally abstract idea of ‘civil society’ Frank Schwartz points out the intricacies of applying concepts across cultures that evolved in distinctively western milieus (2003: 3). After all, as the etymology of the Latin publicus (‘of the people’) suggests, delineating the social universe in public and private spheres or spaces has been a recurring concern of Western thought since antiquity. Cultures, however, have always borrowed from one and another in the past and thus rarely constitute homogeneous entities in the present. “Defying abstract considerations of authenticity and universality, ideas and institutions are constantly spreading beyond their place of origin to take root elsewhere, where they may be reconceived in local terms” (ibid.). Jennifer Robertson adds that “culture (...) is every bit as much an ongoing production as it is a constantly transforming product” (1998: 11). With Henri Lefèbvre (1991) I suggest that space, or more specifically public space, both reflects and contributes to this process and thus deserves further attention. The objective of this article is therefore to sketch out a more nuanced, flexible and culture sensitive understanding of public space. The key is Lefèbvre’s influential idea of the social construction of space, after which space is continually and dynamically constructed through a trialectic between the perceived, the conceived and the lived. The paper elucidates this idea with the example of urban Japan and applies it for a close examination of the underlying socio-spatial and historical processes, leading up to the present public space boom. In order to reduce complexity, the focus is on one particular spatial archetype and its related institutional and discursive context. So-called privately owned public spaces (POPS) are quantitatively highly significant as they thrived adjacent to hundreds of downtown skyscrapers since the late 1960s. Moreover, since these privately owned, yet publicly accessible spaces result from a trade-off between bonus floor area for open space, involving developers and local governments, their design and operation reflects how public space was thought by both public and private key actors at a specific point in time. This is a fresh perspective, as most writing on the subject focused hitherto mostly on government policies but ignored the motivation of private developers.

Here I outline some new thinking regarding Lefebvre's concepts of differential space and the right to the city. The previous empirically orientated chapters in the book point to the potential of differential space but have so far left its nature and processes of production unexplored. Following Goonewardena et al (2008: 13) who argue for the need to take Lefebvre's spatial triad and the production of space ideas as a point of departure and Merrifield (2011) who urges us to go beyond Lefebvre, this chapter seeks to do just that. It does so by incorporating a fusion of differential space and right to the city ideas into contemporary contexts and grounded empirical case studies in the three cities which are the focus of this book. What follows is firstly, a conceptual discussion of the nature of the right to the city and its relationship with differential space. In the discussion below I focus on the ludic aspects and politicised appropriation characteristics of differential space. Secondly, is an analysis and discussion of case study empirical research, which argues that, inadvertently the potential for differential space was created through various heritage-led beautification and urban regeneration schemes

Cities are the height of human achievement. Cities are fraught with ambivalence. We adore city life, it stimulates, entertains and excites. Conversely, urban experiences are scary, disorientating and may be physically and mentally deleterious. Cities are crucibles of democracy, yet remain cauldrons of inequality and injustice. Cities are open and tolerant, but perversely elitist and exclusionary. City streets provide unexpected encounters which can enrich our lives, or disturb deeply. Ambivalence regarding the nascent modern industrial city was captured quintessentially in the visceral eloquence of Alexis de Tocqueville's disturbingly ambivalent assertion, that 1840s Manchester was a vile, filthy cesspit from which flows pure gold, thereby allowing the attainment of civilisation while converting men of all ranks into desperate savages. Above all, it is in the public spaces of cities –  street, squares, piazzas, plazas and parks - that some of the best and the worst characteristics of urban life and society are created, observed and reproduced. These sites are the geographical focus of this book and are interrogated drawing on the spatial triad ideas promulgated by the French, Marxist, sociologist-philosopher Henri Lefebvre. Looking at history in a new light in this book means exploring the histories of shifting representations of space and ascertaining the implications for the production of space and what Lefebvre called differential spaceI seek in this book to explore the production of space and in so doing stimulate a rethinking of Lefebvre’s spatial theories and the essence of urban public space. From this overarching aim flow two research objectives: 1) to tease out the implications of the production of space for post-industrial city transformation, 2) to unravel the role of differential space in such transformation. Empirically the research is grounded in three iconic post-industrial cities: Vancouver, Lowell Massachusetts and Manchester England. Although strongly rooted theoretically, the book locates the conceptual ideas in the practice of urban policy making, urban planning and the politicised everyday use of public space, especially differential space – a surprisingly neglected concept in urban studies. The timescale is from the 1960s to 2010s.

The Research Overview

[To reveal the production of space] we should have tolook at history itself in a new light. We should have tostudy not only the history of space, but also the historyof representations along with that of their relationships –with each other, with practice, and with ideology. History would have to take in not only the genesis of these spaces but also, and especially, their interconnections, distortions, displacements, mutual interconnections, and their links with the spatial practice of the particular society… (Lefebvre 1991: 42)

- Theoretical framework: Henri Lefebvre's spatial triad
- plus understanding role of capitalist abstract space
- Archival and interview research methodology
- Counter-projects led by civil society groups
- Aspirational urban regeneration
(Leary and McCarthy 2013)
- Five axes of public space
- Public space as crucible of democracy
- Production of differential space through
urban regeneration interventions
- Visual representations of space

For Lefebvre, the state and its constituent institutions call for urban spaces but they do not act alone or with impunity in the production of space and their specific requirements are often contested. This was certainly the case in Lowell as the city entered a critical phase of post-industrial reimagining and transformation in the late 1960s. If we are to take seriously Lefebvre’s invocation to scrutinise the histories of the production of urban space, then of course the context in which the concept of the Lowell National Historical Park (LNHP) emerges in the 1970s becomes a critical historical moment requiring investigation. I argue in this chapter that this history was not an inevitable linear procession but rather involved a series of precursor projects and initiatives involving struggles of different spatial coalitions with greater or lesser support from the public sector. After explaining the emergence of Model Cities, in this chapter archival and interview data are used to dig beneath the surface of Model Cities to examine the importance of two neglected production of public space projects: the Western Canal beautification and Ecumenical Plaza. Lowell city council (LCC) has been criticised for its complicity in the destruction of significant historic buildings through the urban renewal programmes of the 1960s, particularly the loss of the Merrimack Mills Company factories and the boarding houses at Dutton Street. This chapter examines a positive contribution of LCC to post-industrial reimagining; the establishment of the Lowell Historic District Commission, an idea rejected initially.

The spatial design of a home has an affinity to intimacy that might have been overlooked by many practicing architects. In this paper, the subject matter of housing will be discussed with a shifted focus from domestic buildings to the space of home and intimacy that scatters in a city. In recent years, some sociologists (Illouz, 2013 & 1997; Turkle, 2013; Jamieson, 2012) have underlined a social translation of a new spatial home by analysing an intimacy in a city that has been enabled by ICT technologies; business models i.e. Airbnb and Couchsurfing also indicated a new form of dwelling by demonstrating how share-economy can assist this spatial home and, in particular, assist the distribution of it so as to assist a city dweller to find and make home without possessing a house. And yet, neither of these examples of home are designed by architects who might actually know the best about the subject matter - this space of home and intimacy. What if the critical spatial design that an architect can produce isn’t the domestic buildings but the visualisation of this space? What is this critical spatial design of the home to cope with the shifting social needs already seen? Through Jeremy Till’s way of looking at buildings and beyond - the lens of Spatial Agency (2011) - the paper will further speculate these examples of home by architectural-writing this spatial design - this architectural-writing, as Jane Rendell describes in chapter of Essay Collections of Critical Architecture (2007), similarly to art-writing, “the very form of the writing itself is taken to be integral to the way in which a critic positions him/herself… The personal and autobiographical enter the debate, not in order to assert an ego criticism, but as part of an on-going political exploration of subjectivity.”

This (summary) paper returns to the original gentrification paper by Ruth Glass as a way into the continuing and somewhat unsatisfactory gentrification debate. It does so within the framework of the 'reflective practitioner'  and the theoretical ideas of Henri Lefebvre. Some urgency is required because accusations of the evil that is gentrification are having an impact, I think unhelpfully on regeneration policy and practice in the UK and elsewhere. The paper starts with a critical engagement with Ruth Glass’ gentrification before considering ‘community and mixed communities -led regeneration. Since the 1970s the term gentrification has been used in a wholly derogatory way to signify harmful social change related to the operation of the housing market. This makes impartial evaluation of the processes and outcomes involved difficult indeed. Local authorities have taken the brunt of the criticisms although government has also been implicated. It is important to consider the original piece that coined the term because, although it is decades old, several of the arguments apply today, especially those regarding the so called displacement impacts of gentrification. The paper explores issues of gentrification and estate regeneration through a case study of the Aylesbury (public housing) Estate in central London and explores too the issues raised when an academic takes on a planning consultancy role involving work over a year long period.

В рамках данного исследования использование пространства осмысляется через фрейм-анализ Эрвинга Гоффмана на примере антикафе и свободных пространств. Здесь допускаются различия в понимании, «что это за место», поэтому допустимо предположить, что социальная реальность в антикафе может быть представлена как матрица фреймов, которые различаются по степени «приватности». Посетители сами регулируют степень «приватного» и тем самым конструируют или, наоборот, разрушают дополнительные барьеры, направленные на поддержку порядка взаимодействия. Проявление невидимых границ приватного пространства внутри публичного определяет проблему исследования. Три исследуемых места, представленные как формально «равные», в действительности оказались тремя различными моделями социальной организации пространства.

This is the manuscript version of chapter two of the book:

http://policypress.co.uk/exploring-the-production-of-urban-space

Chatper Summary
How did an isolated, tough, masculine, nondescript logging camp
with one rough and ready pub become transformed into an iconic
world city? How did the neighbourhood ‘written off in the early
1960s as a slum’ that should be ‘cleared to make room for a highway’,
become one filled with ‘high-end restaurants, condominiums, offices,
modern furniture’ and men’s clothing stores so ‘hiply minimal that it
makes a person’s teeth hurt’ (Bula 2011). A couple of chapters in this
type of book cannot provide definitive answers to all these questions.
The more modest objectives are to explore the recent histories of the
production of urban space and ramifications for city transformation in
that most iconic of Vancouver neighbourhoods, Gastown.

This paper contributes to a critical understanding of the production of urban space through an exploration of notable spatial moments in the 1990s work of the Central Manchester Development Corporation (CMDC), particularly its role in the creation of new public space. Henri Lefebvre's ideas regarding the production of urban space provide rigorous theoretical grounding for the empirical research. The paper unravels the as yet unproblematised origins of Urban Development Corporations (UDCs) and CMDC and shows how the reorientation of the 1960s Urban Programme by the Labour government laid the ground for some of the subsequent neoliberal Conservative government's well known urban policy shifts led by Michael Heseltine. New evidence from archival sources, supplemented by interviews with key informants, is presented which challenges and disrupts some conventional planning wisdom regarding UDCs and CMDC. The paper argues that CMDC's deployment of large scale resources compounded the planning and spatial practice interventions of the previous decade leading to the production of unanticipated public space potentials and the politicised appropriation of urban space. Research findings point to the crucial role of CMDC in stimulating the creation of significant new quasi-public spaces akin to differential space. What are called 'inadvertent differential space legacies' created by CMDC, which remain of great importance for Manchester are highlighted. The paper closes with a number of theoretical conjectures and reflections.

The paper was published:
Progress in Planning, Volume 85, Pages 1-52 (October 2013)
"A Lefebvrian analysis of the production of glorious, gruesome public space in Manchester "
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03059006/85

A welter of frenzies of destruction was wreaked on Lowell for several
decades until the 1970s. Coincidentally, just when Lefebvre’s The
Production of Space was published in the first French edition, the mood
changed to one of historic adoration in Lowell. A pinnacle of this
adoration was the designation of the LNHP. It is the quality of Lowell’s
downtown urban public spaces which in large measure provide for the
social relations which make the park work successfully in multifarious
ways. It was the fusion over three decades of a city based civic ethos with state and federal public spiritedness that facilitated the enhancement of existing and the production of new urban public space in Lowell. The purpose of this chapter is not so much to recount the history of the national park, that has been accomplished several times and there are several published accounts of its emergence (Gall 1991; Ryan 1991; Stanton 2006). The story of Lowell’s post-industrial revitalisation continues to fascinate researchers and recently useful contributions have been made by Weible (2011) and Minchin (2013). Undoubtedly, the most comprehensive history of the national park to date is the NPS sponsored Marion (2014a). Although it is necessary to present brief details of the genesis of LNHP, this is done only to situate and complement the presentation of new research insights which privilege a different set of protagonists and issues from those which tend to frame the dominant academic narrative. The naming and renaming of space and place are critical moments in the production of space. Places not named are ‘holes in the net’, they are ‘blank or marginal spaces’ (Lefebvre 1991: 118). Prominent protagonists in the struggle to establish the national park had implicit understanding of the salience of stablishing credible representations of urban space. An alternative aim of this chapter is to focus on how the range of interests that promoted LNHP did so partly through attempts to impose a meaningful name through which they could gain leverage to appropriate and define its objectives. Lefebvre’s spatial framework should be borne in mind, particularly as analysis of the three case studies presented in the second half of the chapter unfolds. In each case, as with the case studies in the other chapters, the state and each of its constituent institutions were involved deeply in the production of space. Additionally, what becomes apparent is the involvement of other actors and agencies across the private, not-for-profit and community sectors. The cases are based on three public space projects: Kerouac Park, the Canalway/Riverwalk and Boarding House Park. They allow examination of the coalitions, interactions and challenges facing the production of inclusive urban public space.

Urban regeneration has been transformed in recent
years from being a concern primarily of the Global
North, to a world-wide phenomenon. Governments of
all political shades pursue regeneration strategies and
projects that impact on investment decisions and the
lives of millions of ordinary and deprived people
world-wide. In the 1960s in Britain an urban
Programme was declared by Prime Minister Harold
Wilson to be focused on the alleviation of acute social
need in selected urban areas. In contrast in 1981
Michael Heseltine set up the property-led Urban
Development Corporations tasked with exploiting
property development opportunities. This paper
proposes two contradictory rationales for urban
regeneration that have become increasing incompatible
under globalised neoliberalism. These arguments are
elucidated through case studies in London, England.

Henri Lefebvre has become increasingly influential in the years since
he passed away in 1991... At times prolix, inevitably evolving over many decades, Lefebvre’s own writing contains both puzzling contradictions and powerful insights. So in a sense it is perhaps more important to think of scholarship that is inspired by the work of Lefebvre, rather than work that is straightforwardly faithful to the
detail of any particular paradigm. It is perhaps in this sense that this work by Michael Leary-Owhin, Exploring the Production of Urban Space, makes a significant contribution to scholarship that draws on the inspiration as much as the writings of
Lefebvrian urbanism, to generate scholarship that advances our thinking about the post-industrial and the comparative analysis of city change.

The sense in which all space is produced is the most fertile of
Lefebvre’s insights. In this particular volume this sense of production
is used to compare the cities of Lowell, Vancouver and Manchester. If
these are not the most normally compared sites of urban change they
are nevertheless more generative for being so. The ability to combine
historical narratives of urban change with theoretically sophisticated
insights into the spatial fix of the contemporary city, provides a
compelling source of analysis throughout this welcome monograph
that builds on Leary-Owhin’s previous published work.

Two areas of further study and one caveat come to mind in
considering the whole monograph. The first is that through Lefebvrian
analysis it is possible to move discussion of public space beyond the at
times banal nature of much contemporary policy debate. As Leary-
Owhin comments at one point ‘public space should be regarded as a
more complex, socially constructed entity than one characterised either
by public–private or freedom–control dichotomies’. The multiple
vectors of control and powers of freedom force the reader of this text
and urge the readers of urban spatiality, to consider the city as more
nuanced in its potentialities and devious in its designs than either the
politically dystopian or architecturally more naive invocations of public
spaces would suggest.

This leads to a second productive axis and the potential caveat that
works through the text. The sense that public spaces are indeterminate
leads us to think more carefully about the propensity of the city to
change, to mutate and to produce new combinations of immaterial
capitalism, built environment and human nature. We need to consider
critically the city’s future as well as its past.

The author takes his inspiration from Detective Freamon, a
protagonist in the popular TV series The Wire, searching the archive
of the metropolis for evidence of its fabrication. In such a metaphor
the researcher follows in the footsteps of those who have studied
the streets of the industrial metropolis through a particular genre
of knowledge production. The scholar as detective has a long and
honourable genealogy. But if the scholar is a detective one is tempted
to ask if the city should be understood as a crime scene. And if so
then what might the crimes have been? For all his occasional critique
of Foucauldian thinking the Lefebvrian tradition is very strong in
helping us to deconstruct the city, its artifice and its hidden DNA.
Lefebvre provides the template to answer Harvey’s central question for
urban studies when he asked in the book Social Justice and the City, in
whose image the city was fashioned? In his own work this can make
Harvey’s thinking appear at times teleological, lending to a sense of
inevitability to the mutations of a metropolis that appears to many
eyes more contingent.

The detective looks to uphold the law. But what is the law? What
kind of evidence does it demand and what kind of evidence is allowed
to speak truth to metropolitan power. What kind of forensic urbanism
might lead us to understand how we might build the city anew? In this
sense we might look to supplement the insights of Lefebvre, both with
a contemporary analysis of the combinatory forms of infrastructure,
built environment and human culture. We might think again about
the city’s uncertain futures and consider also the sorts of evidence that
might challenge the law in a forensic urbanism that opens a new politics
of possibility of the city that is yet to come. This volume can hopefully
contribute in this way to a body of Lefebvrian urban scholarship that
develops as well as contributes to the tradition.
Michael Keith
University of Oxford
July 2015

This short paper discusses two issues related to the Occupy Wall Street movement. First, a local urban political geography is presented in which Liberty Plaza is not the accidental place of Occupy Wall Street but a deliberate one, not only because it is located between the towers of global capital, but also because it constitutes a so-called “privately owned public space” (POPS). Second, a global financial political geography is presented in which I argue that the imprecise demands of Occupy Wall Street are a result not so much of the heterogeneous base of the movement but of the still largely unknown and “under-understood” nature of finance. 
Keywords: global financial crisis, public space, financialization, zoning, neoliberalism, social movements, Wall Street

This exploratory study examines the relationship between internal space, shared space and private housing prices.
Housing floor area is an ambiguous concept in Hong Kong because it covers a possible exaggeration of the amount of
‘private space’ exclusively enjoyed by the owner and an unidentifiable portion of ‘public space’ shared with other owners
within the development. Using hedonic pricing models, this study has found that different distributions between private
and shared space command different values from the housing buyers. Shared communal space generally exerts a
downward pressure on housing prices. The buyers are willing to pay more for the private space and some desirable forms
of communal space. A higher willingness-to-pay for the desirable attributes such as clubhouse indicates that the Hong
Kong people are increasingly concerned about the quality of living space in the built environment. This study suggests a
need of further research into the exact measurement and the different forms of housing space rather than simply taking the
stated floor space figures for granted.

This rebuttal proof is a response to several proofs of evidence submitted by objectors at this public inquiry. In particular it is a response to the evidence of Professor Loretta Lees  regarding so called displacement and 'breaking up the community'. In this rebuttal proof of evidence, I focus on those points where I consider the Inspector may find it helpful to have a written response in advance of the public Inquiry. I provide the main rebuttal points but do not provide a comprehensive line by line response to the Objectors’ evidence. In most instances I am willing to provide a response in oral evidence at the Inquiry. Therefore, if I have not responded to or referred to other points in the Objectors’ evidence, it is not because I have accepted those points.

Talk at the Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art in Lund, Sweden with a point of departure in the museum's current exhibition of site-specific work by the American artist Swoon.  Based on my book "The Street Art World": https://www.academia.edu/6999602/

"In recent years the issue of public space in urban Japan has won great prominence. Since 2002 for example accredited street artists and vendors (re)appear in parks and streets of Tôkyô as part of campaigns to promote Japan and its capital as attractive, bustling tourist destination. So-called 'Open Cafés' are proliferating in private plazas as well as public pedestrian malls, parks, or sidewalks in order to stimulate new public life in places were previously modernist paradigms of efficiency and functionality ruled such out, or to capitalise on a revival of outdoor life styles. Symbolic, beautified public spaces －parks, squares, promenades, waterfronts－ are created to endow identity to local communities, or to brand office complexes and whole business districts. The growing professional interest in the quality of public space stands in a dialectical relationship with the increasing body of literature on the subject and related burgeoning discourses on civil society, citizen participation, public sphere, and the very concept of Public. This thesis seeks to explore why there is such keen theoretical and practical interest in urban public space and the reasons for this changing focus on public space design and development. How have designers, developers and planning authorities approached public space in the past, and which factors have led to the current re-valuation? What are distinctive meanings of public space in Japan, and, how do those changing meanings influence its production, regulation and use? In order to account for the multiple actors and inanimate elements －texts, images of successful urban spaces－ which equally contribute to the discursive negotiation of public space, the study adopts Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a meta-theoretical framework. Much recent writing points out the social construction of public space with the consequence that values and meanings ascribed to it are never fixed but vary among cultures, places and over time. Nevertheless, when it comes to analysing it in non-Western contexts, often Western views are presumed, which make it difficult to describe relevant phenomena in their own right and against their own conceptual histories. Chapter one deconstructs therefore such dominant Western understandings of public space and contrasts them with intrinsic Japanese meanings and the particular ways these influence the evolution of urban space. After arriving at a workable definition and illustrating its dynamic social construction, an analytical framework is proposed, which accommodates the diverse policies, ideas, and actors, which inform the physical production of public space, and which are exemplified in the subsequent parts of the study. Chapter two takes a critical historic perspective on the genealogy of public space in urban Japan within the wider context of the urban governance system, planning culture and other socio-economic transformations, as current urban developments cannot be adequately understood without a firm knowledge of their particular institutional (formal regulations as well as informal social conventions and social practice), physical and historical background. From the introduction of the first early-modern, western-style precedents －parks, sidewalks, squares, waterfronts－ over comprehensive, open space visions of regional park systems in the inter-war and early post-war period, unitarily used public space came under jurisdiction of highly specialised, non-cooperative, at times antagonistic government authorities, impeding a more comprehensive understanding. An exclusive idea of the public good further eliminated an increasing array of activities and the rampant motorisation dissolved it in insular spaces. In recent years growing private influence and a growing number of successful local initiatives have led to a re-interpretation of public space and with it, the underlying very idea of the public. In global urban studies views prevail, which see mobile capital and multi-national corporations exerting a homogenising influence on urban space and lead to a worldwide convergence. As the guiding hypothesis of this research argues against such a priori simplifications, it looks in the second part into specific, influential projects, which promoted in their aggregation a re-definition of contemporary public space. In order to allow for a differentiated analysis of local and global, public, private or communitarian influences, the main part of the study is structured into three chief chapters: Chapter three scrutinises groundbreaking, small scale projects, where local governments, residents, citizen activists, or external experts advanced unprecedented, alternative types of public spaces through new open planning processes, significantly deviating from established bureaucratic routines of former decades. Chapter four looks at the growing private production of open spaces through incentive planning…

Unlike traditional public space such as parks and streets, which are owned and managed by city governments, privately owned public spaces (POPS) are located on private land or inside privately owned buildings. In New York City these spaces have been built for the opportunity to build buildings that are larger than building codes allow and so are often called “bonus spaces”. In exchange, these paces must be open to the public and are often required to provide some amenities

However, their ambiguous character -- of being both private and public -- and the lack of clear, enforced directives from city governments reduces the accessibility of POPS in various ways. When they are located inside host buildings, even on the ground floor, they may not be easily visible from the adjacent sidewalk. If they are located above the ground floor, their visibility is even further reduced. The presence of a café in the space may suggest to people that one must purchase from the café in order to sit in the space. The required signs indicating the space is public may be hard to see. The hours that the space is open may be severely reduced – for instance to weekdays during the daytime only. The prominence of security personnel at the entrance may also discourage people from entering. 

Drawing upon 24 cases of interior bonus spaces in New York City, this paper will present a systematic analysis of the many ways in which these spaces are not easily accessible.

The question of “pluralism” is different in public spaces and in private spaces. Usually, the discussion on city and pluralism is focused prevalently on public spaces. The central idea of the paper is that it is interesting to explore the problem of pluralism in private spaces also. The relevant point is that the issue of pluralism in private spaces (such as homeowners associations and shopping malls) creates intricate and specific problems, particularly for the classical liberal outlook: in these spaces there is in fact a clash between freedom (of association and contract) and pluralism (of the conceptions of the good).

The research investigates how urban space is ´produced´ through cycles of redevelopment, abandonment and reuse. Jacqueline Groth and Eric Corijn’s (2005) work has been a source of inspiration. I argue that Henri Lefebvre’s concept of differential space provides a powerful focus for thinking about how everyday users of urban periodically, under conditions of neoliberal urbanism, appropriate space, for its use value rather than its exchange value. The context for the theoretical and empirical discussion is the shrinking cities debate focused on Europe and North America, over the last two decades. The research concentrates on urban abandonment as a key aspect of shrinking cities, while acknowledging the scale of abandonment varies enormously between and within cities. Shrinking city literatures have many facets but few researchers have deployed Lefebvre’s spatial concepts to the challenges and opportunities thrown up over time by the reality of shrinking cities. Two UK based case studies of abandoned former industrial sites are presented that show quite different trajectories of abandonment and reuse. Despite this some remarkable similarities are revealed through the case studies regarding the emergence of what Lefebvre calls counter-projects, counter spaces and spatial coalitions. I argue that due to the fluid nature of much urban space neither site can be regard as having reached a permanent state of reuse. The idea of quasi-public space is developed in the context of Lefebvrian differential space. The interests of central government, local government, the private sector, the third sector and everyday users of space are seen to become enmeshed in dialectical struggles to dominate representations of urban space and influence the future of former industrial land. Despite the apparent hegemony of neoliberalism, differential space is seen to emerge through the cracks of a non-hegemonic abstract space.

These reflections came about during and after an interview for Global TV News  Canada. I was interviewed at very short notice on Tuesday 6 June on Waterloo Bridge, London, England by Redmond Shannon of Global TV News Canada, regarding the immediate response to the terrorist atrocity on London Bridge last Saturday night. The paper engages closely with the concepts of urban utopia and dystopia in the context of recent terror outrages in London and Manchester. (all photos by author)

Early in the morning of Sunday 4 June I began receiving text messages from friends and family regarding what appeared to be a terror attack at London Bridge and Borough Market perpetrated by religious extremist fanatics. The Riverwalk there and Borough Market are two one of my favourite spots for street photography so I know them well.
This attacks impact on the public
consciousness was amplified because it came shortly after the horrific terrorist atrocity aimed pitilessly at young people at the Manchester Arena. Unlike the 3,000 or so road traffic accident deaths in the UK each year, terror attacks always provoke an immediate response from the government, police , other public officials and high profile journalists. Physical measures have been a prominent
element of the states response with the deployment of a range of barriers, fences, railings, rings of steel, peace walls
and TV surveillance. These measures usually sit alongside a heightened security presence: armed police and army personnel. In the medium and longer term urban planning, policy and regeneration, architecture and urban design have a role to play in systematising and theorising these kinds of response. Sometimes they provoke new legislation or new security measures. Sadly, they often also provoke retaliation against communities from where the terrorists seem to originate. Once the shock and horror had begun to wear off, I began thinking about the risks inherent in everyday life in any city and especially London. It is clear that city dwellers accept a whole range of risks without giving them much thought or worry. In particular few city dwellers worry much about the risk of traffic accident, air pollution, burglary, street crime, falling debris or indeed being struck by lightning (in a park) and many more real risks. On most days of the week some of Londons eight million inhabitants will die from fatal road traffic
accidents.