Peter Marcuse on Fri, 2 Dec 2011 09:06:11 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Occlupy and Public Space |
The occupation of key public spaces by Occupy Wall Street, as a means of calling attention to more basic problems, raises questions of the role of public spaces that need to be urgently dealt with. The basic questions about the organization of society, democracy, inequality, social justice, public priorities are deep-going and require long-term answers. They should not be pre-empted by the immediate needs for space, not should any space be fetishized. But spatial issues need to be dealt with immediately and urgently. I have tried to deal with these immediate questions in a new piece. I argue that cities should give priority to uses of public space that increase the ability of the people to participate actively and with information in democratic governance. Such a priority can include conventional reasonable time, place, and manner regulations, and could be part of a comprehensive planned approach to the provision of public space. Similar decisions on priorities for the use of public space are constantly made in deciding on the placement of statues, memorial plaques, street parades, festivals, electioneering, etc. They need to be considered here. Planners can have a significant role to play. See OCCUPY AND THE PROVISION OF PUBLIC SPACE: THE CITY'S RESPONSIBILITY, available at pmarcuse.wordpress.com. Comments more than welcome. ** -- Peter Marcuse Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Columbia University New York, N.Y. 10027 212 -- 854 3322 Home: 140 Greenwood Avenue Waterbury, CT 06704 203 753 1140 # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org