This paper uses three recent struggles over public space in California’s East Bay
(Berkeley and Oakland) to critically interrogate the ‘end of public space’
thesis. Developing a historical analysis of the discourse of the ‘end of public
space’ over the past two and a half decades, the paper shows that dismissal of
arguments about the end of public space both ignores the dialectical nature of
the original interventions and comes at a real political and scholarly cost. The
paper concludes that the tendency towards the end of public space in capitalism
is closely related to the necessity for capitalism to produce abstract space.
Both this tendency and this necessity are struggled over and contradictory, and
it is out of these struggles and contradictions that actually-existing public
space is produced.
Goss J (1996) Disquiet on the
waterfront: reflections on nostalgia and utopia in the urban archetypes of
festival marketplaces. Urban Geography 17:
227–247.
11.
HarveyD
(1982) The Limits to Capital,
Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
12.
HarveyD
(1987) Flexible accumulation through
urbanization: Reflections on postmodernism in the American
city. Antipode19: 1–42.
13.
HarveyD
(1989a) From managerialism to
entrepreneurialism: The transformation of urban governance in late
capitalism. Geografiska Annaler B71: 3–17.
14.
HarveyD
(1989b) The Condition of Postmodernity,
Oxford:
Blackwell.
15.
HarveyD
(2001) Spaces of Capital, New
York, NY:
Routledge.
16.
HopperK
(2003) Reckoning with Homelessness,
Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
17.
KatzC
(2006) Power, space, and terror: social
reproduction and the public environment. In: LowSSmithN
(eds) The Politics of Public Space, New York,
NY: Routledge, pp.
105–122.
18.
KaydenJ
(2000) Privately-owned Public Space: The New York
Experience, New York, NY:
Municipal Art Society of New
York.
19.
Kearney L (2012) Measure S
campaign anticipates loss, looks at next steps. Berkeley
Patch, 13 November.
20.
KohnM
(2004) Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of
Public Space, New York, NY:
Routledge.
21.
Lee S (Dir.) (1989) Do the
Right Thing. 40 Acres & A Mule
Filmworks.
22.
LeesL
(1998) Urban renaissance and the street: Spaces
of control and contestation. In: FyfeN
(ed.) Images of the Street: Planning, Identity, and Control in Public
Space, London:
Routledge, pp.
236–253.
23.
LefebvreH
(1991) The Production of Space,
Oxford:
Blackwell.
24.
McPhailCSchweingruberDMcCarthyJ
(1998) Policing protest in the United States:
1960–1995. In: Della
PortaDReiterH
(eds) Policing Protest: The Control of Mass Demonstrations in Western
Democracies, Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press, pp.
49–69.
25.
MaddenD
(2009) Revisiting the end of public space:
Assembling the public in an urban park. City and
Community9: 187–207.
26.
MarstonS
(1990) ‘Who are the people’? Gender,
citizenship, and the making of the American nation.
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space8: 449–458.
27.
Messman-Rucker A (2012) Berkeley
chooses compassion: Measure S rejected by voters. Street
Spirit, 5 December.
28.
MillerK
(2007) Designs on the Public: The Private Lives of New
York’s Public Spaces, Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota
Press.
29.
MitchellD
(1995) The end of public space? People’s Park,
definitions of the public, and democracy. Annals of
the Association of American Geographers85: 108–133.
30.
MitchellD
(2014) Postscript to the 2014
edition. The Right to the City: Social Justice and
the Fight for Public Space, New York,
NY:
Guilford.
NémethJ
(2009) Defining a public: The management of
privately owned public space. Urban Studies46: 2463–2490.
33.
NewmanO
(1972) Defensible Space: Crime Prevention through Urban
Design, New York, NY:
Macmillan.
34.
O’Malley B (2012) Can UC Berkeley
be saved from another people’s park debacle? The Berkeley Daily
Planet, 2 March.
35.
Pachovas M (2012) Berkeley’s
asinine sitting ban measure. Berkeley Daily Planet, 19
October.
36.
PaddisonRSharpJ
(2007) Questioning the end of public space:
Reclaiming control of local banal spaces. Scottish
Geographical Journal123: 87–106.
37.
Paterson R (2012) UC must
transform people’s park’s legacy. The Daily Californian, 3
February.
38.
PyotokM
(2012) When domestic space meets civic space: A
case for design populism. In: ShiffmanRBellRBrownLElizabethL
(eds) Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of
Public Space, Oakland, CA:
New Village Press, pp.
309–326.
Robbins B (ed) (1993) The
Phantom Public Sphere. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota
Press.
42.
Shiffman R, Bell R, Brown L,
et al. (eds) (2012) Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and
the Occupation of Public Space. Oakland, CA: New Village
Press.
43.
SmithN
(1989) Tompkins square park.
The Portable Lower East Side6(2):
1–28.
44.
SmithN
(1990) Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the
Production of Space, 2nd ed.
Oxford:
Blackwell.
Sorkin M (ed) (1992)
Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of
Public Space. New York, NY: Hill and
Wang.
47.
StaeheliLMitchellD
(2008) The People’s Property? Power, Politics, and the
Public, New York, NY:
Routledge.
48.
Text of Measure (2012) An
ordinance of the city of Berkeley adopting a new section 13.36.025 of the
Berkeley municipal code to prohibit sitting on sidewalks in commercial
districts. Available at: www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Clerk/Elections/Election_2012_Ballot_Measure_
Page.aspx (accessed 1 October 2015).
49.
VitaleA
(2005) From negotiated management to command and
control: how the New York police DEPARTMENT polices
protests. Policing and Society15: 283–304.
50.
WaldronJ
(1991) Homelessness and the issue of
freedom. UCLA Law Review39: 295–324.
51.
WhyteW
(1980) The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces,
Washington, DC: The
Conservation Society.
52.
WhyteW
(1988) City: Rediscovering the Center,
New York, NY:
Doubleday.
53.
Wilson J and Kelling G (1982)
Broken windows: the police and neighborhood safety. Atlantic
Monthly March, 29–38.
