Putting the public back into public space

Abstract

The exclusion of ‘the public’ from public space has been a growing source of concern in Australian and international urban research. A variety of models of ‘good’ public space are employed to criticise a range of ‘bad’ spatial arrangements and security technologies in contemporary public space. These models often receive less attention than the spaces themselves, but are a fundamental part of any project attempting to ‘put the public back into public space’. This paper compares four models of public space commonly employed by analysts of contemporary public space. Some of the models of ‘good’ public space are themselves inequitable and exclusionary in important respects. Iris Marion Young's“Justice and the Politics of Difference” (1990) develops a multi‐public model which has the potential to address some of these deficiencies, and the paper suggests ways in which this model might be improved.