Public Space Negotiation

Community youth in Amsterdam redesigned park proposals to suit community needs (van Heeswijk) and Occupy Wall Street protestors interpreted public allowance of Zuccotti Park (Golan) while addressing concerns of noise, sanitation and democratic political expression (Franck and Huang) to negotiate the use of public space.

In the described accounts, each space was privately owned but publicly given, therefore, it would make sense that the community in which the given space exists has authority to use the space as best fit for its needs, whether it was the giver’s intended usage or not.

The occupation of these spaces plays significant social, cultural and economic roles in redefining its usage because a space not properly planned with equal involvement of the community to whom the space was given, fails in its simple objective to serve the public.

Cultural Interventions as described by van Heewijk, have the potential to enable community engagement and contribution to spaces previously excluded. By use of cultural interventions, when local governments and real estate developers involve and learn with the community, it provides avenues for collaboration, responsibility, and sustainability, thus resulting in the transformation of those spaces.

2 thoughts on “Public Space Negotiation

  1. Nora Almeida

    Your point that “a space not properly planned with equal involvement of the community to whom the space was given, fails in its simple objective to serve the public” raises questions about how we currently define and designate public space. How might cultural interventions like those described by van Heeswijk potentially allow for more community input?-NA

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  2. Christopher Swift

    Nice summary of the readings. Your focus on the idea of community involvement brings up a question Prof. Almeida posed to another student: “how [does] political governance operates in our culture. What would a political system based on this idea really look like and how can regular people be a more integral part of defining community spaces.” Couldn’t have said it better myself!

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