something I said

Two thoughts.

One: ‘the privatisation of public space’ is a phrase that’s probably broadly understood, and is exemplified by the creation of outdoor spaces that are owned by private interests, policed by private security firms, and controlled in ways that suit the owner’s interests rather than the broader public interest. In Birmingham, the central walkway at the Bullring between New Street and St. Martin’s is private space, and I think there’s a little brass plaque near each end saying that the right to pass is revocable. This kind of arrangement is widespread, and is cause for concern among people who feel that civic space is being eroded; that there’s an ongoing elimination of places where people can associate freely, voice their ideas and concerns, and engage in the widest possible range of behaviour without fear of reprisal. Some of the most egregious examples of this have happened in the USA, where shopping malls enforce conditions on clothing, even to the extent of banning people for wearing t-shirts with slogans printed on them. This curtailment of freedoms is an anti-social gesture in that it runs counter to democratic principles and distorts social relations.

Let’s say that we want to reverse this trend, and create places that encourage a wider range of interactions with less regulation; more diversity, less conformity, more tolerance. What would we call it? What is the reverse of privatisation? Is there a single word that refers to the making of public space? What kinds of words come to mind?

I think of the agora, the classical Greek marketplace, which represented the place of interaction, both mercantile and intellectual: a place for the exchange of ideas and fish. I also think of the pub, the public house, with its overt distinction as a domicile, an inn, while also functioning as a meeting place, a lounge. Neither agora nor pub make good anchors for a word pertaining to the making of space. The agorafication, publification of space? No thanks. I’ll keep looking. If it were just a matter of de-privatising existing space, it would be an easy matter to coin ‘the deprivatisation of public space’. That would be a welcome word and a welcome occasion. But the creation of public, civic, community space deserves a word of its own.

Two: regardless of what you call it, what is the creation of public space? It is important to describe ‘public space’, explain what it is, and what the requirements are. I think of public space in vague terms, so when I came across this piece at Findlaw, I was a bit surprised at its specificity, but also glad to see that there are more rigorous ways of thinking about the requirements of public space.

This is an American story in that it’s a 1946 Supreme Court decision about freedom of speech, assembly and religion, and about civil rights and due process. The short version is that someone was arrested for distributing religious literature on a street in a company town, which is to say, in a place that was owned by an entity other than the state but which functioned as a public thoroughfare. For me, the nub of the Court’s decision was this:

Can those people who live in or come to Chickasaw be denied freedom of press and religion simply because a single company has legal title to all the town?

This can be put more succinctly: can the owners of a property deprive tenants of opportunities to meet, listen to or otherwise engage with people? Particularly when the owners are prohibiting a particular religion, creed, or other constitutionally protected activity?

The Court said:

Many people in the United States live in company-owned towns. These people, just as residents of municipalities, are free citizens of their State and country. Just as all other citizens they must make decisions which affect the welfare of community and nation. To act as good citizens they must be informed. In order to enable them to be properly informed their information must be uncensored.

I take it to mean that people shall not be unduly deprived of their constitutional freedoms by the circumstance of property: if a place functions as a public thoroughfare in most respects, then the owner has an obligation to protect public sphere activities in other respects, such as the freedom of speech, assembly and religion. It is not so much about the protection of persons distributing ideas, but maintaining open access for those who might want to receive. As Justice Black put it:

we have recognized that the preservation of a free society is so far dependent upon the right of each individual citizen to receive such literature as he himself might desire that a municipality could not without jeopardizing that vital individual freedom, prohibit door to door distribution of literature.

On this basis, one should be able to distribute literature in any private housing estate, as one could reasonably argue that someone on the estate might be interested. But I am more interested in the way this defines public space as a convenient location for the recipient, as a space for customers to find suppliers. It brings us back to the idea of agora, where the exchange of fish and ideas are on equal footing, and that whoever regulates the mercantile space might have an obligation to defend its use as a social space too.

So my two thoughts can be summed up as an observation on how public space is defined and a question about what to call the process of making that space. The question of what to call it is incidental but mildly amusing. The observation of what makes public space merits a lot more consideration. The Supreme Court opinion puts the shoe on the other foot regarding privatised space by making property relations subsidiary to the broader requirements for maintaining a democratic society.

The particulars may not be applicable in Britain, but I can imagine asking a developer what they will do to create public space that supports rather than curtails broader social requirements. It will be interesting to formulate other questions about creating public space, not least to develop a substitute for concepts and vocabularies of ‘privatisation’.