scholarly journals From Pedestrian Thoroughfare to Public Space: The Social Life of the Esplanade Underpass

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hoa Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Control

This study examines the Esplanade Underpass, an underground thoroughfare in Singapore that supports a range of public users and uses, despite not being a formally planned or officially designated public space. The Esplanade Underpass serves as an interesting case study as most public spaces in Singapore are zoned and governed by regulations of various kinds. The Esplanade Underpass, however, is minimally subject to these forms of surveillance and control. This research asks: What are the characteristics of the Esplanade Underpass that set it apart from the narrative of order and control often imposed upon public spaces in Singapore?” Through participant observation and interviews, the study investigates the users and uses of the Underpass. The study reveals how a range of users of the Underpass adapt the physical space for various uses, consequently establishing a series of informal social norms. Through varied habitual uses, the Underpass has been transformed from a place of transit into a meaningful public space which possesses a vibrant social life. The study highlights the nuances of social engagement that can work to make spaces “public” and offers a novel understanding of informally formed public space in Singapore.

scholarly journals Conviviality as a Spatial Planning Goal for Public Open Spaces

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 4382-4387
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Tendency ◽  
Public Open Spaces

Conviviality is a popular concept in urban design while referring to the good qualities of public spaces. This concept is the need for current times when social life in physical public spaces is declining away largely to forces like social media and the virtual world. The human tendency to feel satisfied and happy exists in existence with others. The social media has taken away the role that established Greek agora as the first centre of public interaction which initiated the concepts of modern democracy. Where popular public spaces have big roles to perform, the small public spaces in the neighbourhood and markets perform an important role to stage the everyday local nuisance in people's life. Even If public space is satisfactory enough to take away the loneliness and boredom of everyday course of modern living a lot can be achieved. Conviviality is one such factor which helps to elevate the satisfaction of spending time with others. This paper is an attempt to understand conviviality and relate it to public open spaces from the physical planning point of view.

Fencing a Field: Imagined Others in the Unfolding of a Neighborhood Park Conflict

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Trouille
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Property Values ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Public Park ◽  
Park Use ◽  
Changing Demographics ◽  
And Control ◽  
Shed Light

This article offers a detailed analysis of a neighborhood dispute over fencing a public park. Unlike the archetypal turf battles between longstanding and new neighborhood residents described in previous research, here the daily visits of Latino “outsiders” coming into a local public space produce conflict over park usage and control. The usually cited conditions for conflict, such as reactionary residents resisting ethnic transition and protecting their backyards, do not apply in this case, as the park sits amidst a relatively stable, affluent, white “liberal” neighborhood. This case study shows how sources of tension and trouble extend beyond the property interests and actions of the park users to include the more symbolic and indirect concerns about identity as reflected in park use. Together with longstanding concerns over neighborhood reputation and property values, changing demographics and greater sensitivity to the perception of racism distinctively shaped the unfolding of conflict in this case. The bumpy course of conflict and shifting opinions about the fence shed light on the new complexities and contradictions of contemporary social diversity and exclusion in city parks and other public spaces.

scholarly journals A Quality Assessment Directory for Evaluating Multi-functional Public Spaces

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-151
Author(s):  
M. Salim Ferwati ◽  
Ali Keyvanfar ◽  
Arezou Shafaghat ◽  
Omar Ferwati
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Space Design ◽  
The Social ◽  
Life Impact ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract Public spaces facilitate opportunities for social interaction and promote social life. The social-spatial complexity of public spaces can be explored through the relationship between built forms and users’ daily social activities. The contemporary needs of users have retrofitted or replaced the controversial public spaces such as streets, depriving the prime function of sustaining and facilitating social life. Thus, any factors influencing users’ social/public life impact the quality of public spaces. Also, contextualization and definition of public spaces necessitate an evaluation of their quality. The lack of a quality assessment directory (QAD) for evaluating multi-functional public spaces motivated us to address it. To achieve the aim, this research has conducted a systematic literature review applying the content analysis to explore the principles and indicators influencing and enhancing social interactions in multi-functional public space design and then performed a normalization analysis to measure the weight of each indicator. The QAD constitutes five criteria (C1 – Inclusiveness, C2 – Desirable activities, C3 – Comfort, C4 – Safety, C5 – Pleasurability), and forty-two (42) embedded sub-criteria. The research found that Inclusiveness (Wn C1 = 4.38) and Pleasurability (Wn C2 = 3.88) have received the highest weights. Also, the research found that the sub-criteria ‘Physical/visual connection or openness to adjacent spaces’ (Wn Sc.4.1 = 1.00), ‘Users of diverse ages’ and ‘Community gathering third places’ (Wn = 0.750) have received the highest weights. Using such a QAD, urban professionals can quantify the effectiveness and efficiency of public spaces’ environmental and physical qualities in promoting social interactions and sociability.

scholarly journals Post-development Practices of Public Space, Between Cohabitation and "Domination" of New Atmospheres

2021 ◽  
pp. 185-202
Author(s):  
Abdellah Moussalih
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Urban Restructuring ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Sharing ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Social Uses

Public space becomes a major issue during urban restructuring. To better understand this specificity, we chose the Rabat’s dock developed as part of the Bouregreg valley development project, as a case study. This space, with its background, has been subjected to a profound restructuring as part of the project. The study of the social uses and practices of citizens through their manifestations in this space makes it possible to identify the evolution of the relationship between the transformation of spatial structures and the production of landscapes representative of the image of the urban area. The transformations brought by this mega-project in our study area show new urbanities. In front of a tendency to micro-appropriation by the upper social classes and the tendency to a smoothed and polished urbanity, is found a more diverse and more complex urbanity which oscillates between a consensual social sharing of public (physical) space and / or maintaining old practices.

Revisiting the End of Public Space: Assembling the Public in an Urban Park

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Madden
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Park ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Development

A case study of the renovation of New York City's Bryant Park, this article revisits the end of public space thesis. the renovated park signifies not the end of public space but the new ends to which public space is oriented. in Bryant Park, a new logic of urban publicity was assembled and built into the landscape. the social and technical means by which this transformation was achieved are analyzed. New public spaces of this sort promulgate a conception of the public that is decoupled from discourses of democratization, citizenship, and self–development and connected ever more firmly to consumption, commerce, and social surveillance. If such places do not herald the end of public space, they do represent “publicity without democracy.”

scholarly journals Embodiment of Ancestral Spirits, the Social Interface, and Ritual Ceremonies: Construction of the Shamanic Landscape among the Daur in North China

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 567
Author(s):  
Feng Qu
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Northeast China ◽  
North China ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Interface ◽  
Human Construction ◽  
Human Social Life

The case study in this paper is on the Daur (as well as the Evenki, Buriat, and Bargu Mongols) in Hulun Buir, Northeast China. The aim of this research is to examine how shamanic rituals function as a conduit to actualize communications between the clan members and their shaman ancestors. Through examinations and observations of Daur and other Indigenous shamanic rituals in Northeast China, this paper argues that the human construction of the shamanic landscape brings humans, other-than-humans, and things together into social relations in shamanic ontologies. Inter-human metamorphosis is crucial to Indigenous self-conceptualization and identity. Through rituals, ancestor spirits are active actors involved in almost every aspect of modern human social life among these Indigenous peoples.

Change in the social life of urban public spaces: The rise of mobile phones and women, and the decline of aloneness over 30 years

Urban Studies ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (8) ◽  
pp. 1489-1504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith N Hampton ◽  
Lauren Sessions Goulet ◽  
Garrett Albanesius
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Social

Urban Redevelopment as Contingent Process: Implicating Everyday Practices in Berlin’s Renewal

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindy T. Cooper ◽  
Christopher Mele
Keyword(s):  
Urban Redevelopment ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
And Control

In this article, we generate a “middle–ground” perspective to interrogate the range of interactions between political economic processes and everyday practices in the study of urban redevelopment. Focusing on the contested redevelopment of residential, commercial, and public spaces in the Spandauer Vorstadt neighborhood of Berlin, we examine how institutions and individuals incorporated certain local everyday practices and behaviors into renewal agendas. Such processes of incorporation were neither uniform nor homogeneous but disputed; state actors, planners, and developers, as well as residents, focused on certain existing neighborhood practices (and ignored others) in an effort to manage and control the course of neighborhood redevelopment. Conversely, everyday practices influenced redevelopment processes in ways often not intended by residents or other stakeholders. Finally, while our findings pertain to the case study of Berlin, we suggest that similar processes are at work in other cases of urban redevelopment in Western cities.

The role of public libraries in the development of social capital in local communities – a theoretical study

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 184-196
Author(s):  
Maja Dorota Wojciechowska
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

PurposeSocial capital, understood as intangible community values available through a network of connections, is a factor in the development of societies and improving quality of life. It helps to remove economic inequalities and prevent poverty and social exclusion, stimulate social and regional development, civic attitudes and social engagement and build a civic society as well as local and regional identity. Many of these tasks may be implemented by libraries, which, apart from providing access to information, may also offer a number of services associated with social needs. The purpose of this paper is to present the roles and functions that libraries may serve in local communities in terms of assistance, integration and development based on classical social capital theories.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews the classical concepts of social capital in the context of libraries. It analyses the findings of Pierre-Félix Bourdieu, James Coleman, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Putnam, Nan Lin, Ronald Stuart Burt, Wayne Baker and Alejandro Portes. Based on their respective concepts, the paper analyses the role of the contemporary library in the social life of local communities. In particular, it focuses on the possible new functions that public libraries may serve.FindingsA critical review of the concept of social capital revealed certain dependencies between libraries and their neighbourhoods. With new services that respond to the actual social needs, libraries may serve as a keystone, namely they may integrate, animate and engage local communities. This, however, requires a certain approach to be adopted by the personnel and governing authorities as well as infrastructure and tangible resources.Originality/valueThe social engagement of libraries is usually described from the practical perspective (reports on the services provided) or in the context of research on the impact of respective projects on specific groups of users (research reports). A broader approach, based on original social theories, is rarely encountered. The paper draws on classical concepts of social capital and is a contribution to the discussion on possible uses of those concepts based on an analysis of the role of libraries in social life and in strengthening the social capital of local communities.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document