Social Public Space Research Articles

Without Risk Reduction: How Black Men’s Well-being and Humanity Are Compromised in Mobile Public Spaces

Much of the urban research on the daily experiences of Black men in American society has focused on Black men as perpetrators, as victims of street and gang violence, or with some carceral connection. These earlier studies highlight how racist tropes of Black men as dangerous and thus to be feared situate Black men for continuous, targeted, and aggressive actions by the state and other social actors. This places a social tax on Black men who are then bound to exercises of embodied negotiations in public social spaces where they navigate both being shunned and “disappeared” while also hyper-visible. Drawing on ethnographic data collected across several years, this article examines how Black men are targeted for aggression in mobile public spaces in Chicago, Illinois. We use public transportation as a space of interrogation because of the uniqueness of mobile places where riders and transit personnel are temporarily confined while mobile and with limited options to escape the dangers of racism and racial aggression. In these spaces, we find that (1) Black men are threatened with harm, (2) their bodies are treated as sites of fear, and (3) their well-being is risked through an institutional breach of duty to provide safety for them as passengers and transit personnel.

Social Space Ratio: Calculating the Rate of Public Space Activities That Enhance Social Interaction on a Pedestrian Street in Karlstad, Sweden

William H. Whyte took on the challenge of assessing the amount of public space in a city based on its carrying capacity, pointing out that popular public spaces offer more room for social activities. However, the absence of qualitative characteristics makes this assessment even more challenging to implement. This study aims to find a method to gauge the carrying capacity of urban public spaces by calculating the social space ratio for pedestrian-only streets in Karlstad, Sweden, and quantifying this relationship. The social space ratio represents the proportion of public spaces that foster social interaction throughout their entire area. The method began by selecting the most relevant conceptual framework for social public spaces and then sought theory-based characteristics to assign to seven social activities on Karlstad’s pedestrian-only streets. The authors performed a comprehensive search of the literature utilizing the PRISMA approach, gathering information from credible references, placemaking toolkits, transportation toolkits, and academic sources. This was performed to determine the weighting factors and effective social areas by evaluating these activities in terms of nine categories of the chosen framework: accessibility, traffic, social infrastructure, security, places to meet, senses and experience, architecture and aesthetics, development and maintenance, and control and programming. We devised a method to calculate the carrying capacity and social space ratio of Karlstad’s pedestrian-only streets, resulting in a ratio of 0.38. The research led to the development of eight quality-control tools to analyze the seven social activities in public places. This innovative approach helps researchers and municipal planners evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of these spaces, contributing significantly to Swedish urban planning and enabling future studies to create a social area factor.

Research and Design of Public Spaces for Elderly People in Rural Areas

With the progress of society and economic development, China has reached an aging population. According tothe Chinese population census data, China has entered the second stage of an aging population society and has become one of the countries with the fastest growth rate of the elderly population in the world. It is expected that the elderly population in China will reach 250 million within the next fifteen years and exceed 450 million by 2050. Additionally, China is a country with uneven development between urban and rural areas. Many young and middle-aged people choose to work in cities, which leads to most rural residents being elderly. Thus, the phenomenon of the elderly living alone by themselves occurs. Therefore, the government and related experts are increasingly concerned about the physical and mental health of the elderly. The establishment of the elderly activity center is to meet the needs of the elderly cultural life, improve the level of elderly physical and mental health, and promote the harmonious development of the countryside. Many countries aware of this problem would emphasize park construction and nursing home design for the needs of the elderly. However, little research are performed on the activity center and public spaces for the elderly in underdeveloped rural areas. Design countermeasures of the public space should consider the physical, psychological, and behavioral needs of the elderly. This study summarizes the influencing factors, design principles, and design methods of public spaces to effectively meet the needs of the elderly for public activities. By creating and improving public social spaces suitable for the elderly in rural areas, the elderly can lead a comfortable life and solve loneliness issues.

The Time House: between cybernetics and phenomenology

Martin Pawley’s ‘The Time House’ (1968) is a study on how to use multimedia technologies to provide a continuous record of individual experience within the domestic interior. The project’s underlying argument is that there is no authentic experience to be had in the public realm. As an antidote, Pawley proposes a retreat into a private world, where individuals, with the use of technology, can retain a continuous and repayable record of time. Thus, The Time House would enable its inhabitants to relive – phenomenologically, with all the senses – past experiences. Pawley believed that this repeated, unembellished re-creation of the past would reveal to its inhabitants a truer version of both the past and themselves, thus offering opportunities for introspection and self-knowledge. The Time House tries to bring together all the key concerns of architecture in the late 1960s: cybernetics, phenomenology, environmental behaviour studies, the use of cutting-edge technology, Cold War politics and fears, and the countercultural aim to expand human consciousness. Yet, Pawley’s proposition to use technology to simulate lived experiences with the aim of altering human behaviour still stimulates heated arguments today. These arguments stem from current fears about the effects of digital technologies on individuals and society: the disconnection with the here-and-now, the prioritisation of the individual over the collective, the disintegration of reality and the neglect of social public space. The Time House, which could be dismissed as a project of its time and place, is embedded in a web of ideas still resonant in our present.

Placing Mexican Ethnic Enclaves: Toward a Recursive Model of Place Attachment

Place attachment, the emotional bond between person and place, facilitates well-being and belonging for Mexicans in the United States. However, place attachment research concentrating on Mexican populations has not explored a key site for placemaking—the ethnic enclave. Thus, we draw on 20 interviews with Mexicans in the United States to examine how individuals form close connections to La Cuatro, an ethnic enclave in California. Despite the overall positive nature of their emotional connections within the enclave, our model uncovers paradoxical and recursive outcomes. While place attachment promotes a sense of belonging within La Cuatro, these emotional bonds are deeply tied to broader experiences of social alienation in areas outside the enclave. This alienation stems from three primary factors: (1) legal status or lack thereof, (2) racialization, and (3) pervasive anti-immigrant socio-political ethos. We propose a recursive model of place attachment that considers social context to explain the placemaking processes of marginalized racial and ethnic groups in public social spaces. This model problematizes the experiences of marginalized communities, such as Mexican immigrants and their descendants, and provides a theoretical framework to examine the interplay between place and broader society.

Puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit: lesbian and bisexual women in Cuban LGBT public spaces

While research on Cuba may present a story of increasing tolerance for LGBT people, this article’s gendered analysis highlights the fractured nature of the ‘community’, revealing social exclusion based on deeply embedded patriarchal, racialised, and classed gender norms. Based on ethnographic research with Cuban lesbian and bisexual women and drawing on examples of Cuban LGBT public social space, it argues that the discrimination and social exclusion that lesbian and bisexual women face is underpinned by Cuba’s rigid machista gender norms, beyond straightforward sexism and sexual orientation discrimination. In three public spaces—CENESEX in Havana; gay clubs; and the Matanzas branch of the Iglesia de la Comunidad Metropolitana – Metropolitan Community Church – it shows how lesbian and bisexual women struggle to make social connections and community. This article develops the argument that, in this case study, political and social acceptance of different sexualities is built on a foundation of gender normativity, and excludes those who do not comply with gender norms. It brings a gendered analysis into the story of ‘gay rights’ in Cuba, which is often missing. Alongside other studies on lesbian and bisexual women across the world, this research helps demonstrate how LGBTIQ lives are structured by gender norms, and why it is important to consider gender in our work.

Research and evaluation on students' emotional attachment to campus landscape renewal coupling emotional attachment scale and public sentiment analysis: a case study of the "Heart of Forest" in Beijing Forestry University.

In the era of stock renewal, the construction of university campuses in China's first-tier cities has shifted from demolition and construction to renewal and upgrading, in which public landscape space is the main environment for students' daily life, learning and entertainment. Especially during the outbreak of the recent COVID-19 epidemic, it has become an important way for students to interact with nature and obtain emotional healing. In the existing studies, there is a lack of discussion on the correlation between the spatial characteristics of the updated campus landscape and students' emotional attachment, and there are few quantitative studies. Based on this, this paper takes the "Heart of Forest" landscape space as an example, and integrates multi-dimensional quantitative methods including emotional attachment scale and public semantic analysis to study and evaluate the characteristics of landscape space that affect students' emotional attachment. The results show that: (1) Overall, the landscape space renewal of the Heart of Forest provides students with positive emotional experiences and effectively enhances students' emotional attachment as well as sense of belonging to the campus. (2) Among them, the material characteristics of the site including nature-related elements, materials, structures play a positive role in promoting the vast majority of students in the process of establishing emotional attachment, which is particularly obvious for students majoring in landscape, architecture and urban planning. (3) Whether the public social space can effectively provide students with a good emotional experience is closely related to the frequency and purpose of students' use of the space. (4) The interactive characteristics such as changeability and playability fail to promote emotional attachment because of lacking of management and maintenance. The renewal and transformation of the "Heart of Forest" landscape space is generally successful in promoting students' emotional attachment, and provides a reference for the future campus landscape renewal design from different angles. In addition, the quantitative study of emotional attachment constructed in this paper coupled with multi-dimensional data provides a method for the evaluation of students' emotional experience of campus landscape.

Research on the Intervention of Contemporary Art in Social Public Space

In today’s rapid economic development, consumer culture has become the main body. In this era, public life is constantly changing, and the original public space with simple physical performance can no longer meet people’s demand for public space. As an original force, art intervenes in public space and public life, adding emotional links between space and the public. With the creation form of contemporary art becomes more and more open and advanced, it is increasingly free from space constraints. It has become a development trend for contemporary art to move out of art museums and into social public space and public life. This study focuses on the intervention of contemporary art in social public space in China.

Fake News: Mass Knowledge Illusion Under Pleasure Marketing

Fake news refers to deliberately fake news. It is not only a practical problem that puzzles the information audience, but also a blind spot and misunderstanding of the public's participation in current affairs. It also brings endless troubles to news work of social life. Therefore, it constitutes a problem that is widely concerned by the communication, journalism and cultural industry circles. This paper will profundly analyze the generation, essence and function of fake news, a knowledge illusion, from the perspective of the audience's consumption psychology, and on this basis, think about the psychological path for audience to penetrate the fake news knowledge illusion, hoping to solve the difficult problem of perplexing social life and social order through cultivation of the audience's own news literacy.The essence of fake news is that it provides knowledge illusion for the audience by pleasure marketing,which is somewhat like the true news. The knowledge illusion is materialization for audience’s “omniscience” desire by “peseudo-objective” symbolic system, to realize the producer’s utilitarian intention in political, economic and cultural aspects. To penetrate the knowledge illusion of false news, the audience should first be aware of the contradictions within the organizational structure of the false news knowledge illusion, then be soberly aware of the illusory nature of the illusion and self desire, and avoid objectifying self desire, so as to discover the gap between the news symbols and the intention of the false news producers and penetrate the false news knowledge illusion. When the audience really realizes the penetration of the false news knowledge illusion, he not only returns to the normal social transmission order, but also helps the public media to establish a healthy transmission ethics in social public space.

Common Areas, Common Causes: Public Space in High-Rise Buildings During Covid-19

This article explores forms of public space that have been rendered palpable during the Covid-19 pandemic: public spaces in high-rise buildings. We consider both physical and social public space in this context, thinking about the safety of both common areas and amenities in buildings and the emergence of new publics around the conditions of tower living during the pandemic (particularly focusing on tenant struggles). We determine that the planning, use, maintenance, and social production of public space in high-rise buildings are topics of increasing concern and urgency and that the presence of public space in the vertical built forms and lifestyles proliferating in urban regions complicates common understandings of public space. We argue that the questions raised by the pandemic call upon us to reconsider the meanings of public space.

A Novel Community Detection Method of Social Networks for the Well-Being of Urban Public Spaces

A third place (public social space) has been proven to be a gathering place for communities of friends on social networks (social media). The regulars at places of worship, cafes, parks, and entertainment can also possibly be friends with those who follow each other on social media, with other non-regulars being social network friends of one of the regulars. Therefore, detecting and analyzing user-friendly communities on social networks can provide references for the layout and construction of urban public spaces. In this article, we focus on proposing a method for detecting communities of signed social networks and mining γ-Quasi-Cliques for closely related users within them. We fully consider the relationship between friends and enemies of objects in signed networks, consider the mutual influence between friends or enemies, and propose a novel method to recompute the weighted edges between nodes and mining γ-Quasi-Cliques. In our experiment, with a variety of thresholds given, we conducted multiple sets of tests via real-life social network datasets, compared various reweighted datasets, and detected maximal balanced γ-Quasi-Cliques to determine the optimal parameters of our method.

Research on the spatial characteristics of sky gardens based on networked pictures: a case study of Singapore

ABSTRACT As alternative public spaces in vertical public realms, sky gardens have become an increasingly important spatial element and part of the urban vocabulary in high-density environments worldwide. However, the public's spatial experience, social behavior and aesthetic needs in sky gardens have not been thoroughly explained. This paper takes Singapore, which has a rich social public space in the air, as an example where studies estimating spatial perception have used networked images instead of user preference survey results. Manual image identification and image recognition were performed with a computer vision application programming interface (API) to recognize networked images. Then, we extracted the sky gardens’ main elements in Singapore’s urban environment using clustering analysis, principal component analysis and factor analysis with SPSS. Finally, we discuss the spatial distribution, role and composition of sky gardens in high-density cities and people’s emotional preferences. The study shows that sky gardens are effective alternative public spaces in Singapore's vertical city, and their physical elements occupy a dominant position in the public’s spatial perception; there is a strong tendency for different buildings’ sky gardens to have spatial demand characteristics, while public facilities and cultural activities are key factors that affect sky gardens’ quality.

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Transformation of Cinema Buildings and Spaces in Nicosia: Early-Mid 20th Century Heritage

Cinemas emerged as a new and genuine expression of culture at the beginning of the 20th century. In the 1920s cinema buildings became important for developing city life and especially as a social public space for entertainment. The period of great success of cinemas was inevitably destined to fade with the arrival of TV. However, this period left behind interesting architectural heritage. On the other hand, the “box of dreams”, the cinema industry, is a suggestive media contributing in defining other aspects of popular culture in a period of hectic changes and progress. The scope of this paper aims to investigate this specific building type, cinemas, within the context of modern heritage value in northern Cyprus. The purpose is to raise awareness on significance of cinema buildings thus to foster their protection and enhancement. The study also aims to investigate the historical relation of these buildings to their environments and neighborhoods as well as their transformed current situations. Some buildings were replaced with new ones, some were abandoned, and some others were converted into different uses. These transformed situations are results of changing economic, socio-cultural life styles and changing morphology of the cities. This paper aims also to stress the role of Cypriot architects and architecture in the international panorama within the Mediterranean area, in a peculiar multicultural context. Common features with other countries and local characteristics of the selected buildings are detected and analysed. Architectural qualities and solutions are studied to understand the reflections of the studied period. This study follows a qualitative research approach. The key discussions are made through investigating the cinema buildings and spaces in Nicosia, Northern Cyprus, as a case study method. This research investigates these buildings and spaces through historical archives, photographic surveys and producing maps for showing the location of these within the historic Walled City of Nicosia and its close surrounding. This stage provides significant data about their historic conditions and surroundings and comparisons with today’s current situations. In addition, interviews with local residents who used these cinemas in those periods are also carried out to support historical information and highlight the socio-cultural and economic understanding of those days.

INTERACTIVE RECREATION IN CITY HISTORICAL ENVIRONMENT

Studies of recreational processes in the city, the specifics of urban life, trends in the recreation areas organization both in domestic practice and in foreign experience are relevant and timely. Sustainable development of the city involves the stable functioning of the city structure to meet the material and spiritual needs of society, provide the rational use of available resources and potential, form the favourable conditions for human existence in the historically established environment of the city. This process is based on the search for optimal solutions of the city development, determination of the directions of urban areas functioning, taking into account the current trends and patterns of the urban structure development and the formation of relevant scenarios and plans on its bases.
 The urban area on the whole is an important and limited city resource, therefore the effective use of existing territories is especially important for the sustainable development of the city. The creation of interactive recreation centres within the downtown historical buildings could be the solution to many problems, because interactivity implies diversity, which in terms of city-planning requires making of recreation areas as multifunctional and flexible spaces where the residents could spend their time interesting and useful. The public social space is necessary not only for satisfying the population’s needs, but also for their forming and developing. In the context of present-day segregation of city residents and the absence of permanent information-bearer channels, it is the city-planning streets and square interiors of the city that can become an information and communicative space. The role of public space restoration will provide for the integrity of the city in its city-planning, cultural and social aspects. After all, public spaces are one of the key components of an individual’s comfortable existence and coexistence with the society in general; these are places of collective and individual development and unity of people with the rich historical, architectural and natural heritage of urban substance. A solution of a city historical environment and cultural heritage preservation issue is a significant contribution to the future national development based on the study of the historical achievements of the past, which has no alternatives in creating the attractive interactive recreation areas in the centres of historical cities.

Медиатизация православия — это возможно?

Тотальная медиатизация всех сфер современных обществ ставит социологов перед непростой проблемой необходимости ревизии устоявшихся теорий и подходов. Применительно к отечественной и зарубежной социологии религии это означает ревизию все еще используемой по старинке парадигмы секуляризации. Институционально оформившееся медиаизмерение традиционных религий слабо укладывается в жесткие рамки теорий секуляризации, предписывающих трактовать любые инновации религиозной системы как ее обмирщение и выхолащивание. В такой системе координат плохо помещаются медиатизированные миры традиционных религий, опосредующие выходы религий в публичные социальные пространства. Так, совершенно незамеченным остался прецедент 2015 г., когда православный иеромонах Фотий стал победителем развлекательного шоу «Голос» и концертирующим «Голосом России». В равной степени вне социологической рефлексии пребывает и российское православие эпохи web 2.0 — множественные цифровые церковные СМИ, медиахолдинги, сайты Московского патриархата и синодальных отделов, приходов и православных храмов, православная поисковая система, священнические и монашеские профили в социальных сетях Vk.com, Facebook, Instagram, медийное вещание православных подкастов и спутниковых каналов, видеоблоги и документалистика на платформе YouTube. Меж тем, определенным образом соотнесенные офлайн- и онлайн-измерения современного российского православия конструируют новые идентичности, сообщества, модели национального патриотизма, процедуры цензуры и контроля российских медиа- и интернет-пространств. Настоящая статья предлагает проанализировать медиатизацию российского православия как составляющую процесса его долгосрочной реинституционализации. В качестве методологической рамки исследования автор использует концепции медиатизации общества, предложенные Фридрихом Кротцем, Андреасом Хеппом и Ником Коулдри. Это позволяет рассмотреть уже существующие православные медиамиры и кейс иеромонаха Фотия как маркеры определенных этапов реинституционализации российского православия.
 Благодарность. Исследование выполнено при финансовой поддержке РФФИ, в рамках проекта № 19-011-00871 «Социальные медиа как фактор трансформации православия в современной России».

PERKEMBANGAN RUANG SOSIAL DAN RELIGIUS DI KOTA METRO TAHUN 2000 - 2017

The presence of social and religious space in a city can be one of the choices for people to eliminate fatigue that is felt so that the community is able to interact, socialize, gather and create in an emotional (communal) building besides that it can support and direct the community towards progress in religious as well as the noble values of their ancestors so that the presence of social public space and religious public space in a city is very important for the community. The approach used in this study is a qualitative method with a type of naturalistic research. Data analysis techniques that will be used are data reduction, data presentation and conclusion drawing. Based on the results of the study, it was found that the development of social space and religious space in Metro City experienced a rapid increase. This is evidenced by the conduct of renovations carried out in social and religious spaces in Metro City which can have a positive impact on the economy of the community. The conclusion of this study is the development of social space and religious space so that in social space not only as a place for recreation but can support the economy of society in addition to the religious space not only as a place for worship but can also be used as an Islamic nuance recreation.

Parts of the Whole: Motor and Behavioral Skills in Self-Regulation and Schooling Outcomes

ABSTRACTPrimary education is compulsory around the world. This means that around age 5 or 6, millions of children worldwide transition from home or preschool/kindergarten settings into primary school, with the success of this transition shaping school and life trajectories for years to come. Both developmental and environmental factors during early childhood spur tremendous change in children’s executive function (EF), a multi-component process fundamental to self-regulation and overall achievement. Successful self-regulation means that children can master their attention, emotions, and behaviors as they navigate public social spaces including the classroom and playground. Adaptive development of EF and self-regulation are critical, because primary school comes with heightened expectations for children to manage themselves effectively. In this special section of 4 articles that collectively span preschool through 5th grade, we take an integrative, whole-child approach to studying children’s regulatory processes and schooling outcomes. Special section authors explored conceptual frameworks, measurement approaches, and empirical research on the motor and behavioral aspects of self-regulation and their contributions to educational outcomes. Article themes include the importance of precise and nuanced measurement of regulatory processes in addition to academic skills; in-school and out-of-school time as unique contexts for development; multiple interrelated developmental domains important for EF and self-regulation, including visuo-spatial and visuo-motor skills; and the need to synthesize research on EF and self-regulation across developmental domains for efficacious application and interventions. In taking an integrative, whole-child approach to the study of self-regulation and schooling outcomes, these articles represent research that are important parts of the whole.

Found and Lost in Translation: Exploring the Legal Protection of Women from the Domestic Violence Act 2005 Through the Social Public Space of Kolkata

The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 (PWDVA) came into effect on 26 October 2006. The PWDVA introduced several legislative innovations that either are proclaimed as landmarks or remain underscored in the commentaries of the PWDVA. This article attempts to explore the landmark and the mundane PWDVA aspects by examining the implementation of the PWDVA through the relation between the formal legal sphere and the social sphere. It aims to examine how and in what ways has the formal domestic violence law fostered a legal culture engendering legal literacy of ordinary women and men. In doing so, the article explores how the implementation of the PWDVA responds to a particular sociocultural context of women experiencing violence at the hands of family members in India and offers a legal conception of domestic violence that is significantly different from the Western notion of domestic violence as interpersonal violence between two individuals.

GIS-Based Factorial Ecology and Social Public Space of the Twin City of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, West Bank, The Palestinian Authority

In the present research, a factorial ecological approach using factor analysis was employed to evaluate the dimensionality of the urban social structure of the twin city: Ramallah and Al-Bireh, West Bank, the Palestinian Authority. Through factor analysis, the 41 variables were reduced to four factors with an eigenvalue > 1.0. These factors explain 77.07 percent of the total variables used in the study. Factor I contributes 28.419% of the total variance proportion of input variables, labeled as “family, housing, and public spaces factor”. Factor II accounts for 19.57% of the variance proportion, designated as” housing and urban public spaces”. Factor III is strongly correlated with variables referring to the characteristics of the head of the family, and the availability of public spaces, and thus, is designated as “head of the family and public spaces”. It explains 16.68% of the total variance. Finally, factor IV explains 12.406% of variance proportion, and is strongly associated with variables pertaining to a lack of public social spaces. Consequently, factor IV is termed “lack of public spaces”. The spatial distribution of factor scores related to factors I to IV was mapped using Arc GIS in order to analyze the spatial patterns of the recognized four factors. It is worth noting the factor IV, which refers to the lack of urban social space and, urban public space, which persists in the twin city, and will continue to persist in the future. The lack of urban open space and public social spaces is closely connected to migration, emerged housing pattern, and family status dimensions focused on factors I to III, continuous confiscation of the Palestinian lands, and the construction of Israeli settlements. Currently, the twin city is extremely overcrowded with stone/concrete buildings at the expense of public space which has declined continuously over the last three decades. Nevertheless, the analyzed spatial pattern of factor scores indicated the homogeneous character of the urban society of the twin city. Based on the urban eco-logical models which seek to characterize the Western, non-Western, Israeli, and Arab-oil producing (e.g., Kuwait) urban structures, it is difficult to elaborate a specific Palestinian urban ecological model with reference to the models developed elsewhere.