Who needs public space? Isn't private safer? And is it one space, or many overlapping dimensions, such as the physical three dimensions of urban space: time, the sphere of media and the realm of politics? We may need to look at a more complex and contemporary definition of public space than the ones still formulated separately by urbanists, politicians and journalists. Particularly from the points of view of rapidly growing cities and public decision-making, it is important to be able to read public space in all of its manifestations simultaneously.

 

Key features of urban public space are accessibility for citizens and meaningful connection to public life. Photo Kaarin Taipale

Richard Sennett has written about the changing forms of public and city life, trying to unveil what has led to "unbalanced personal life and empty public life". He has traced back the etymology: "The history of the words 'public' and 'private' is a key to understanding this basic shift in the terms of Western culture. The first recorded uses of the word 'public' in English identify the 'public' with the common good in society." Even today, the word "common" also means a piece of public land-an area available for anybody to use.

Public goods, common good, collective goods and global public goods are heavily contested concepts. Public goods are hard or impossible to produce for private profit. One cannot run out of them once they have been produced, and it is difficult to prevent access to them. Natural environment (common good), social policy (collective goods), knowledge (global public goods), national defense systems and systems of property rights (public goods) are typical examples.

The public sector can be seen as the dialectical opposite to the private sector. Organizational theory juxtaposes the non-profit versus the for-profit sector. However, defining the public sector as "not for profit" misses the point; rather, it should be understood as "not for private profit" or "for the common good". "Private" has the connotations of being personal and intimate. Speaking on a mobile phone in a bus or on the street is a rather new phenomenon that keeps irritating bystanders. It is a total, even if ephemeral, merger of the private and public realms, but also an intrusive act of private audio-exhibitionism in public space.

In the nineteenth century, the privacy and stability of the family became a protective shield against the traumas of early industrial capitalism. Sennet describes family as "an idealized refuge … with a higher moral value than the public realm". Maybe there is a parallel to the present-day conservative rhetoric that highlights traditional family values as the core of society. "Against this ideal order [of the family], the legitimacy of the public order was thrown into question." A creative work is said to be in the public domain if there are no laws that restrict its use by the public at large. Such works as the inventions of Archimedes, the Bible and the Qur'an also form part of the public domain, because they were created before copyright and patent laws. In contemporary jargon, public domain refers to space within the openly accessible virtual world, e.g. a private website.

 

In most cities, pedestrians are second-class citizens, while private automobiles fill public streets. Photo Kaarin Taipale

Most urbanists tend to think of public space as three-dimensional urban spaces, such as Piazza Navona (in Rome), Red Square (Moscow) or Central Park (New York). Urban space is both the visible symbol of local democracy and the quintessential location for it to "take place". In every city, Departments of Public Works and Urban Planning know what they have to plan, build and maintain-roads and streets, pedestrian and bicycle routes, squares, markets and parks. The welfare State provides its citizens access to basic services. Until the 1980s in most countries, the provision of basic services and the maintenance of infrastructure were considered a task of the public sector. Neo-liberal Thatcherist policies and worldwide financial systems have since driven the separation of the roles of service producer and of access provider, and have encouraged the outsourcing and privatization of production. Ownership and maintenance of infrastructure have often been forgotten.

Many municipalities still own water and energy utilities and infrastructure, keeping them within the public sphere. In other cities, provision of water or energy has been commissioned to multinationals, while the distribution networks may be in public-private ownership. Telecom-munications networks have gone through the most thorough privatization process of all formerly public services and infrastructure. One could ask, for example, how wireless local area network (WLAN) differs from tram tracks. Would it have been wiser to have competing companies build their own lines with different widths? Some people take offence of urban advertisement as an aesthetic hazard. However, the visible effect is a symptom revealing that public space has been sold to someone who is trying to sell something. Who can buy public space and who has the authority to sell it?

 

Parks are prime examples for an ideal urban public space. Photo Kaarin Taipale

Time, as the fourth dimension of space, expresses itself through movement and memory. Binary vision is the human body's tool to comprehend distance and space. Movement strengthens the perception of three-dimensionality. The speed and means of mobility are crucial for the reading of space. "Public space has become a derivative of movement", notes Sennett, referring particularly to the motion by car. In most cities, pedestrians are second-class citizens, while private automobiles fill public streets. Collective memory resides in public space. Depending on how familiar we are with our historical past, we have the ability to read the built environment like a picture, to decipher a historical timeline by looking at facades is the easiest part. From which period is this building? A closer look tells more about the construction process and technology.

The fifth dimension is media, and the information and communication technology (ICT) acts as its infrastructure. Virtual space has rapidly become an equally important place for public appearance and political argumentation as any other media. A demonstration can take place at a central square, but it becomes truly public after it has been broadcast on CNN-a private global news channel-and can be traced on Google. We will never know if a reporter stands in front of a photo or the real White House or at Tiananmen Square, but the image of public space gives her/him credibility. Even if commercial and privatized, the sphere of media is public. "The Street" talks via ICT. Google illustrates the character of the Internet as a public space. If the Chinese Government wants to control access to it, the shareholder company becomes a gatekeeper of virtual streets. In the nick of time, Google has become the 27th biggest among stocks traded in the United States, because investors believe that it will revolutionize advertising as an endless global platform. Politics can be a risk, but not advertisement.

Former United States Vice-President Al Gore has quoted the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas: "He describes what has happened as 'the re-feudalization of the public sphere'. That may sound like gobbledygook, but it's a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal system, which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge and made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth and power were intimately intertwined, and where knowledge played no mediating role whatsoever. The great mass of the people were ignorant. And their powerlessness was born of their ignorance." Mr. Gore reminded his audience that the founders of the United States knew all about forums and agoras. Democracy only works if people are informed, and only then can Governments be held accountable, leading to transparency instead of corruption. But if news becomes entertainment because of the privatization of the media and of the public space, there will be no more news.

The hidden sixth dimension of public space is the sphere of politics. The Greek agoras, where men would gather and make decisions about common issues, are in the back of our minds the symbol of "pure democracy" as it was practiced until quite recently in the Swiss Canton Uri-gender equity set aside. The French go to the streets if they want to express their dislike of the politics. "La rue won again" was the title of a newspaper editorial referring to youth riots in Paris in 2006. President Jacques Chirac had to withdraw the proposed labour law, and during the same time the peace-loving middle-class citizens of Thailand filled the streets of Bangkok and forced the Prime Minister to step down.

In the seventeenth-century English language, "public" meant open to the scrutiny of anyone, according to Sennett. Transparency is the key question in politics. One could argue that all goods are private and only ownership can give a mandate to decision-making, but if we agree that there are common goods to be shared equally among people-not just a finite amount of private goods-there has to be an open forum where decisions can be made about sharing the commons.

It is trendy to call anything a paradigm shift. I'll do it anyway. While we can see streets, parks and squares as the embodiment of public space, we should also understand a twofold paradigm shift: the move from the age of horse carriages and street riots to the era of virtual portals and websites, and from a purely public space to a fuzzy mix of public and private domains. It is not possible to neglect one or the other anymore. Maybe they can be seen as a single public space with multiple as well as private layers. Even so, we will need public spaces that are accessible to all and can be used as platforms for open dialogues and participatory decision-making.