What Makes Public Space Public? The Chaos of Public Space Definitions and a New Epistemological Approach

Defining Public Space as a Metaphorical Term

Metaphorically defining public space is the first approach. When the concept of public space is used metaphorically, it does not refer to a physical space but rather to a space of initiative, in which free individuals can make collective discussions about common interests and issues (Iveson, 2007, p. 17). If any physical space is used for this purpose, this space is public, regardless of other spatial features. For example, Habermas (1989) identifies private coffeehouses and salons as “public sphere,” in which citizens form public opinion, even though these spaces are open to only the educated bourgeoisie. Similarly, Arendt (1958) defines a public space as a place of appearance, where “men act together in concert” (p. 4). Under this definition, “a private dining room in which people gather to hear a Samizdat or in which dissidents meet with foreigners can become a public space . . .”(Benhabib, 1993, p. 102). As the metaphorical definition of public space is not associated with physical features, “public space” becomes an intellectual concept rather than a specific physical location. The metaphorical definition of public space can be employed in almost all types of physical spaces without logical contradictions.

The problem is, without tangible content, the identification of metaphorical public space would be split by opposing political ideologies. That would make the concept of public space even more enigmatic. For example, in criticizing the work of Habermas, Belina (2011) notes that the bourgeois “public space” is an ideology, which usually equates “public” with the exclusion of urban “undesirables.” In this regard, privatization gradually erodes traditional public spaces (Mitchell, 1995; Sorkin, 1992). However, the analysis of communist countries might be an opposed case: Drummond (2000) summarizes that Vietnam has little history of public spaces but a social vacuum filled by the authority of the state (p. 2382). She excludes the accessible spaces from her identification of public space because spatial management in Vietnam follows the decisions of the government rather than the “people.” In other words, a publicly owned open space could mean “nonpublic” in this view.

This contradiction related to the ideologies reveals the problem of the metaphorical definition of public space. If every place could be a public space, then every place could also not be a public space. If a publicly used space is controlled by private owners, the excluded “undesirables” might lose their status of having an Arendtian appearance. However, if a space is under the control of the public sector, the space might not represent the educated bourgeoisie’s opinions and willingness. After all, what constitutes the “people” depends on political ideologies. The ambiguity of public space cannot be clarified if public space is identified almost arbitrarily by opposing ideologies.

Defining Public Space by its Essential Features

The second approach attempts to anchor the concept of public space based on its essential features. If a physical space has the supposed essential features, it is a public space. Common essential features are ownership, openness, free access, and so on. The underlying assumption of this approach is that there must be some essential features that make a space public, especially a “good” public space. With a relatively clear standard of essential features, the identity of public space could be made more explicit than it is through the endless debates between political ideologies.

For example, in current studies, accessibility is usually emphasized as the most significant feature of public space because it promotes social integration and fosters social norms and democracy (Harvey, 1992). As Carmona, de Magalhães, and Hammond (2008) note, “public space (broadly defined) relates to all those parts of the built and natural environment, public and private, internal and external, urban and rural, where the public has free, although not necessarily unrestricted, access”(p. 4). Similarly, Madanipour (2010) defines that “the more accessible and permeable a place becomes, the more public it will be . . .” (p. 9).

However, the problem is that to a large degree, these features are as vague as the concept of public space, albeit the meanings of these features are usually taken for granted. Without a clear identification of the features, the concept of public space would not be rigorously defined.

Examining accessibility further, no place can be open to absolutely everyone (Merrifield, 1996). If a place is open to “hard drug dealers, crack-heads, pimps, muggers and rapists,” this place is not actually accessible to all people. People who are scared of such groups would become the de facto excluded group: “thanks, but no thanks: watching television is a better option” (p. 62). Social integration among diverse groups would not exist if the public space is not desirable to the intended users.

Accessibility is always associated with some type of regulation. Automatically assuming that any type of exclusion is bad oversimplifies the meaning of public space (Merrifield, 1996). The concept of accessibility is, in essence, the interpretation of who has the right to access a space (Bondi & Domosh, 1998), rather than merely a physically nonfenced openness.

If we hold that accessibility is the right to access a space, then accessibility is no longer a tangible feature. A physically open space can still be socially exclusive. Therefore, if accessibility is not explicit, the identity of an “accessible” space is still enigmatic according to the different beliefs regarding who has the right to use the space. Identifying the essential features of public space would not be clearer than using political ideology to identify public space.

Defining Public Space by Lists

As there are diverse reasons a place can be “public,” comprehensively listing all types of public spaces is another approach. The underlying assumption is that “public space” is a cluster concept (Kohn, 2004). Defining the concept of public space based on any particular feature would oversimplify the concept. With that in mind, outlining a range of possible meanings or criteria of public spaces might be a good approach because “a subset of these criteria grouped together would then qualify a site as a public space” (Kohn, 2004, p. 11).

Through this approach, the concept of public space is usually defined by its design, socio-cultural and political-economic dimensions (Carmona, 2010). Each dimension includes different public spaces based on various lists, such as designed facilities (Gehl & Gemzøe, 2001), places for everyday interaction and social gathering (Dines & Cattell, 2006), and sites of representation (Kilian, 1998), and different degrees of spatial control (Flusty, 1997).

The logic here is that because the range of public space is wide, no single taxonomy can exhaustively represent the concept of public space. Using lists is thus a way to present the nuances within the concept.

The problem is that making a list assumes that the included subsets are similar to one another, while also being different from the items that are not included in the list. However, as the list of public spaces is formed by contradictory definitions and various possible meanings from different perspectives, one “public space” might be obviously different from other public spaces but close to a nonincluded private space.

For example, shopping malls might be recognized as public spaces because people can freely access the spaces without too many restrictions (Levine, 2005). However, there are many other stores that people can freely access without buying anything, such as supermarkets and pharmacies. Some successful supermarkets can even be larger than a small shopping mall. Does that mean all accessible stores are public space? To what extent is a shopping mall more like a park (a typical public space) than a large, accessible supermarket? These questions are hard to answer merely by using a list.

The approach of listing is, to some extent, a circular argument: scholars attempt to answer what public space is by listing all possible public spaces; however, the answer to why these spaces, rather than others, should be included in the list depends on what is considered public space. If the criteria are contradictory, the inconsistency within the list can be even worse.

Defining Public Space by the Multidimensional Evaluation System

Using an evaluation system is the fourth approach for comprehensively unifying the concept of public space. This approach assumes that public space has multiple meanings. No single dimension of “publicness” automatically outweighs others. The public nature of public spaces is not identified by lists of features or a single continuum but rather by a quantifiable evaluation framework.

Németh and Schmidt (2011) developed an evaluation framework of publicness that encompasses three dimensions: “diverse/collective,” “public/government,” and “inclusive/open.” A space is not dichotomized as “public” or “private” in this framework. Rather, a space is more “public” or more “private” according to its aggregate score evaluated by the three dimensions.

There are many other evaluation frameworks of public space based on the same assumption. For example, Varna and Tiesdell (2010) developed the 6-dimensional “star model,” which encompasses “ownership,” “control,” “civility,” “animation,” and “physical configuration.” Neal (2010) evaluates the publicness of public space from “legal-economic,” “socio-spatial,” and “political” dimensions. All these frameworks aim to illustrate the publicness of public space through a multidimensional evaluation.

Defining spatial publicness using an evaluation system enhances the understanding of public space but is still problematic. This approach usually assumes that different dimensions of “publicness” are encompassed at the same level. Thus, the publicness of different dimensions is “empirically quantifiable.” However, public spaces are not all of a piece. A basic principle of formal logic is that quantities of different dimensions cannot be added together: adding an apple and a spaceship does not make any sense because we do not know how these two compare. Similarly, the publicness of public spaces cannot be simply evaluated by the quantitative aggregate of different dimensions. The presence of single feature that we generally label as public might be a sufficient reason to consider a space as a “public space,” regardless of how “public” the features of the other dimensions are (Parkinson, 2013). For example, despite its inaccessibility, a military base might be public due to its public ownership and public interests. A public park usually cannot be “public” in the same way. The low scores from dimensions other than “public ownership” would not make the base less public because the military base’s “publicness” is, in that specific sense, different from that of a park (Spock v. David, 1972). The logical problem here is derived from the assumption that “publicness” is monolithic when, in fact, the different dimensions of “publicness” are related but cannot be simply added together.

The Entity View of Concept

Current studies usually employ the entity view in defining public space: a concept is assumed to be a separate entity on its own. This assumption has a long history in philosophy. As early as the theory of typology by Aristotle (1994), defining a concept has been understood as demonstrating the “essence” of an entity. Therefore, the concept represents an objective category of things with similar essential features because essences are assumed to be universally true (Aristotle, 1975). Later scholars developed the entity view by including abstract ideas as the essence of an “entity” (Rodgers & Knafl, 1993). For instance, the essences of a “public space” could be concrete (e.g., the degree of openness) or abstract (e.g., accessibility). Thus, public spaces are entities that are derived from the abstraction of real essences.

According to this entity view, every concept is assumed to have the essential features that are the sufficient and necessary conditions to be that concept. For example, the essential feature of the concept “table” should be “used for placing objects on, to perform work on, etc.” (Sager, 1990, pp. 23-25). This feature is sufficient and necessary in identifying a “table” and exists in all physical tables. Other features of a table, such as “horizontal” or “flat surface,” are not essential because they cannot distinguish the concept of “table” from the concept of “chair.”

In the entity view, a concept should exist independently and have “true features” to be a category. Scholars might propose the “essences” of public space in different ways. However, the assumption that public spaces have essential features is prevalent.

The Preference for a “Real Definition”

In terms of the philosophy of typology, there are two types of definitions: real definitions and nominal definitions. The two types have different logics of what accounts for the characteristics that could set up a conceptual category. A real definition explicates the features of an entity about what that entity is, while a nominal definition serves to distinguish it from other objects (McGoldrick, 1985).

For example, defining the concept “gold” as “the element with atomic number 79” is a real definition (Carney, 1982, p. 87) because it can be objectively examined. In contrast, defining “gold” as a yellow metal that is very valuable and commonly used in jewelry would be a nominal definition because it restricts the concept of “gold” by other conceptual indexes that guide the listener to imagine the concept of “gold.” The quality of a nominal definition depends on the supposed image of the concept, rather than the true essence (Brownstein, 1995).

Regarding typology development, the preference for a “real definition” is another influential assumption. Scholars assume that a real definition will be more accurate than a nominal definition because a nominal definition might be arbitrary (e.g., Carney, 1982, p. 87; Cohen & Nagel, 1934, p. 262): defining “gold” as “the element with atomic number 79” is more accurate than defining it as a “yellow material.” Therefore, if a concept has both a real definition and a nominal definition, the real definition should take the place of the nominal definition.

Based on this perspective, a good definition of public space is assumed to be empirically explicit. For example, the New York City Council (2007) defines the “privately owned public space” as a space that “shall contain an area of not less than 2,000 square feet,” “at least 50 percent of … shall be free of obstructions,” and so on (pp. 34, 37). This is a real definition of public space based on quantitative indexes of scale.

The Concentration on the Space in Plan

The current approaches for clarifying public space are usually based on the planning features of public space (“space in plan”), rather than on the users’ activities and experience (“space in use”), albeit a metaphorical definition might be the only exception. There are several causes for this preference.

First, the space in plan approach is usually consistent with the logic of the entity view and the preference for a “real definition,” while the space in use approach is not always explicit. If the essential features of public space exist and can be objectively summarized, the space with the supposed features would automatically be public.

Furthermore, the activities and experience could be neither sufficient nor necessary conditions for identifying a public space. For example, a public gathering is usually considered a typical activity within public spaces, but it is still not sufficient to identify a public space. If a single-family house is rented as a sorority house, to some extent, the house is for public gathering, but it would not be definitively qualified as a public space. Users’ activities and experience are usually criticized as being too arbitrary to identify a public space.

Third, the ecological tradition in public space studies has also led to a concentration on the space in plan approach. The assumption that people’s activities and experiences are derived from the ecological features of a space is influential (Wirth, 1938). People’s social activities are usually assumed to be the result of a space, rather than the reason for the space: physical openness causes social integration, but the degree of social integration does not change physical openness. If a study assumes that the experiences are a result of the physical features, it logically excludes people’s perspectives from the production of the space. A supposed result cannot exist before the reason for that result.

The Dispositional Theory of Concept

The entity view of concept works very well if the supposed essential features do exist. However, lexical concepts usually have no clear essential features. After closer scrutiny, most of the “essential features” are not essential enough. For example, it is difficult to define the essential feature of the concept “violin” (Medin, 1989). Is “made of wood” an essential feature of the violin? Not all violins in the world are made of wood. However, if a special stone-made “violin” sounds too different from other wood-made violins, is the special “violin” still a violin? Even an expert on musical instruments would find it difficult to define the sufficient and necessary essences of the concept “violin.”

A concept should not be considered an independent entity. Rather, a concept is a “family resemblance” (Wittgenstein, 2001), in which the subsets more or less share a resemblance with each other but have no rigid or distinct boundaries. The description of a concept guides listeners to understand the resemblance of a concept, rather than forming a standard to determine what is true or false.

In this regard, clarifying a concept relies upon comparisons. The meaning of a concept is developed by people’s imagination and its specific use, rather than the essence of an empirical reality. Taking the concept “game,” proposed by Wittgenstein (2001), as an example, we cannot define the concept “game” in the same way that we define “gold” in the periodic table. What we truly do when defining “game” is restrict the definition to our imagined image of games (Wittgenstein, 2001, p. 3). In this process, we set up de facto criteria to distinguish games from nongame concepts, such as “has rules” and “is done for pleasure.” This definition neither exhaustively points out what activities truly fulfill the requirement of the criteria nor excludes all exceptions from the categories. Rather, it summarizes the general resemblance of the family of the concept.

More importantly, when people use a concept in their conversation, they do not always know or care about the essence of the concept. A concept is neither an independent entity nor the name of an entity. A concept is used to enable the conversation, wherein the concept guides the audience to imagine the image that the speaker intends. In other words, the use of a concept is an individual mental process but also a social interaction (Hallett, 1967). Once the audience is able to understand the concept, the use of the concept is not arbitrary. The understandability of a concept means that society accepts the speaker’s individual imagination as a satisfactory social reality.

For the logic of dispositional theory, the meaning of a concept is only observable in the specific use. The ideas that a concept expresses are more important than the concept itself (Ryle, 2009). The understandable ideas within the concept are fundamental for the “family resemblance.”

Nominal Definitions are as Important as Real Definitions

The assumption that the real definition is more accurate than the nominal definition is not always correct. Even though a real definition might be a fact, using a concept does not always mean dealing with facts. In some cases, the use of the concept even opposes the fact. In factual terms, a whale is a mammal rather than a fish. However, the United Kingdom’s former Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries included whales in its concept of fish when considering things that swim in the sea (Wilson, 1969, p. 4). In this case, the concept of “fish” actually represented an idea about what “fish” designated in the context, rather than the biological facts.

Therefore, when people use a concept, the meaning of the concept is restricted by context and people’s associated ideas. Even real definitions or facts cannot violate context-based imagination. Otherwise, facts would turn into lame arguments based on perverted logic. Suppose that a customer in a pawn shop insists that his motherboard contains “gold.” Factually, a computer motherboard does contain the element “gold.” However, it is ridiculous to equate the “gold” within the motherboard to the other “gold” found in a pawn shop. Using “valuable yellow material” here is more accurate as a definition than using “the element with atomic number 79.”

Regarding the actual use of a concept, a real definition could be an appropriate approach for expressing what a speaker means, but a real definition is not necessarily a fact that overrides other nominal definitions. All definitions should be understood in their contexts and interpreted by their implied ideas.

Space Users’ Activities Matter

If we recognize that the meaning of a concept is based on people’s use and the contexts of conversations, rather than on essences or facts, the activities within a space cannot be excluded from the analysis of a space’s public nature. Not all social activities are directly derived from the material foundations of a space (Harvey, 1989). As Lefebvre (1991) states, “in produced space, acts reproduce ‘meanings’ even if no ‘one’ gives an account of them” (p. 144). From this sense, the meaning and imagination behind the activities might be subjective, but would not be arbitrary. Rather, social activities engage with different meanings using the same physical feature. The space in use is not always the same as the space in plan. A planned public space might be eroded by private activities, and finally turn into a de facto private space (Sorkin, 1992), while a planned private property might be used and understood as a public space (Zhang, 2017).

Not only in the field of theoretical studies, but also in judicial and administrative practice, the concept of public space is by no means absolute but is rather associated with specific activities. For example, in the case of Lenrich Associates v. Heyda (1972), the court supported the exclusion of the group who danced, marched, played musical instruments, and burned incense in a mall. The debate about whether a mall is a public space for free speech is, in fact, based on whether the aforementioned activities are appropriate in a mall. Determining a place as an absolute public space without considering specific activities is impossible. The analysis of a space’s public nature always depends on what activities are being referred to.

Family Resemblance

Providing examples of “family resemblance” should be the first step. These examples should be “public” to the same extent as the space that we need to identify. The “resemblance” could be a fact or not (e.g., calling a whale a “fish” to identify the shared resemblance of swimming in the sea). As long as the “resemblance” of a public space can guide the audience to understand the emphasized public nature, the family resemblance provides fundamental content about what “public” means.

Nominal Definitions

Nominal definitions restrict the concept of “public space” to separate it from other concepts. Although each of these concepts could be as enigmatic as the concept of “public space,” they play the role of a guide for imagining the difference between “public space” and other “nonpublic” cases. Depending on the specific context, we might need to apply different nominal definitions to distinguish what spaces are not public in the specific conversation. These excluded spaces are also necessary for clarifying the concept.

Specific Activities

The examination of which human activities the space is public for is necessary. Without information regarding what activities happen in the space, an identity would lose its basis. A mall may be recognized as a de facto public space in terms of some activities of peaceful expression. However, if the so-called “peaceful activity” is marching or burning incense, the identity would be changed.

These three parts of the framework form an integral whole meaning of “public space.” Without all three parts, an identity of a public space would be ambiguous and hard to understand. Although this framework challenges the usual way of identifying public space, the underlying logic of this framework is usually implied in the discourse of jurisdictional practices.

The Public Nature of Shopping Malls

In terms of identifying shopping malls as public spaces, most of the controversies are derived from a paradox: on one hand, the modern role of shopping malls is, to a large degree, similar to that of traditional public parks. People can freely access most malls and have social gatherings and recreation in the space. On the other hand, a shopping mall is, in essence, a commercial and consumerist facility. Masquerading as a public space is a business strategy to increase the number of potential consumers (Zhang, 2017). Therefore, the consideration of both the public nature and the private property values of a mall are necessary. With the aforementioned new framework, the clarification of shopping malls can be more consistent with multiple cases, norms, and laws (Table 2).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 2.

A Shopping Mall as a Public Space.

Family resemblance	Similar to a PUBLIC FORUM (A mall is dedicated to the public)
Nominal definitions	Different from an OFFICE BUILDING’S CORRIDOR (A mall is not designed only for conducting specific private business or groups)
Specific activities	For only INVITED AND REASONABLE ACTIVITIES (A mall is a public space for only reasonable activities)

The Public Nature of Facebook

As another type of semipublic space, Facebook and other social media are usually as controversial as shopping malls in terms of their public nature (Table 3). The difficulty in clarifying Facebook’s public nature is derived not only from the site’s private ownership but also from the “blurry edge” between private uses and public gatherings (Gelman, 2009).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 3.

Facebook as a Public Space.

Family resemblance:	Similar to other public spaces with PUBLIC CONCERN (Facebook is used to develop public concern)
Nominal definitions:	Different from other AUDIENCE-RESTRICTED SERVICES (some posts on Facebook are open to all audiences)
Specific activities:	Prompted by POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONCERN (some activities on Facebook are prompted by political and social concern)

The paradox of Facebook is that: on one hand, Facebook usually acts as a cyber-place for people to present their personal experiences or post their personal ideas. On the other hand, a large number of the posts about personal experiences and ideas have public purposes. These posts are not for preserving individual interests or memories, but rather for raising public concern. The political agenda is controlled not only by political elites but also by political amateurs’ posts (Mahlouly, 2013).

The question is when individual interests and personal experiences are used for public purposes, to what extent should public norms and administrative regulations be applied in this new type of public space? Do teachers have the right to freedom of speech to complain about their jobs on their private Facebook accounts the way they can complain in their private houses? Can a law enforcement agency develop online surveillance of people’s Facebook accounts without the consideration of the Fourth Amendment, as they would when monitoring a public park? Especially when the analysis of Facebook’s public nature is related to someone being “Facebook fired,” namely an employee is fired because of his or her personal social media use, identifying whether Facebook is a public space is extremely controversial, and can even cause a chilling effect (Akiti, 2012; Kerr, 2009). However, the proposed framework in this article, to some extent, can contribute to clarification.