Is Public Space a Public Good? [Dispatches]

Dispatch Is Public Space a Public Good? Thomas Fisher In our country, almost irrationally suspicious of the public sector and seemingly determined to incapacitate government, public space plays an increasingly important role as both a place of refuge for all who get left behind in the rush to privatization, and as a place of resistance for all who see danger in an ever more radical right wing. The University of Min- nesota’s College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture sponsored a symposium in October entitled “Public Space, Public Good?” that touched on such questions. Organized by faculty member Kristine Miller, the symposium brought together architects, landscape architects, and urban designers to evaluate the state of public space and the nature of the public good in an era in which both concepts have come into question. Miller led off with a chapter from her forthcoming book on privatized public spaces in New York City. Focusing on the IBM atrium, she asked what recourse the public has when private owners alter spaces intended for public use, as happened when the IBM atrium’s original bamboo garden, designed by Zion & Breen, received major modifications. She called for a public role in oversee- ing the changes to privately owned spaces provided in exchange for bonus space. That, however, will take a public sector in the U.S. that doesn’t cower, as so often happens now, in the face of private power. Architect Frank Mora and land- scape architect Ludewijk Baljon showed public-realm projects they have designed in Puerto Rico and Holland respectively. Mora demon- strated that often simple moves, like cleaning up local streets or creating a new neighborhood entrance, can have a transformative effect, engaging the inhabitants and restoring the social infrastructure. Meanwhile, Baljon showed how a landscape architect could hold together a newly cre- ated Dutch suburb, determining not only the major moves, but also the details that link the designs of various architects. In both cases, public space becomes the way to bind together dis- parate people, reminding us that our professional responsibility includes the health of communities and ecosys- tems, the safety of our air and water, and the welfare of future generations and even other species. Landscape architects Dianne Harris and Walter Hood examined the ambivalence Americans have about the public realm. Harris critiqued Chicago’s new Millennium Park, an expensive and exclusive public space that offers suburbanites an urban spec- tacle, complete with the “corporate graffiti” of private sponsors on almost everything. At a time when Chicago’s schools and streets badly need money, Harris asked if this constitutes the best use of limited government funds. Hood showed two parks of his design in Oakland, where the local commu- nity demanded space for various uses, ranging from an open market to public toilets. In the end, Hood suggested, the public should make the ultimate decisions about the use of such spaces. Architects Linda Schneekloth and Robert Shibley spoke about public space at a very different scale, the entire Niagara region. They pro- posed the idea of “ethical theming” to embrace those who often get over- looked in the typical branding of a region to attract tourists. At Niagara, this concept would involve seeing the Niagara River not as an edge separat- ing two countries, but as the center of a single region. Politicians and planners have long depended upon boundaries and edges to separate people and thus reduce conflict — a substitution of distance for discourse that has reached a point where people Places 17.1 rarely encounter anyone or anything by chance anymore. As a result, many people fear real public space because they lack experience with it. Yet, the resolution of such public conflicts may be the most important contribution design can make in our world, evident in the examples of traditional public spaces discussed by historian Marc Trieb and landscape architect Laurie Olin. Trieb described the design of Senate and Market Squares in Helsinki, two spaces that, while close together and roughly the same size, have very different func- tions and characters based on what surrounds them. Public space, in other words, depends for its vitality on the surrounding private property, just as the value of the latter depends upon the quality of the former. Olin recounted his work on the restora- tion and revitalization of New York’s Bryant Park, where the quality of life in the space depends on improved design, management, maintenance, and programming, all working together. The symposium ended with a spirited conversation among the par- ticipants. Do we have too much public space, asked Hood — more than we can afford? In reply, Olin asked, rhe- torically, why we even have parks, or why we care about public life. Such questions reflect the embattled quality of public space in the age of terror- ism and privatization. Public space has certainly become the stage on which the global struggle between the rich and poor, the disingenuous and the disenfranchised, now gets played out. Some might reasonably wonder if such problems would vanish if we were to get rid of all public space. But terrorists have shown themselves adept at creating public space faster than we could ever take it away. The World Trade Center towers, almost entirely private property, became a