• DOI:10.1111/J.1467-8306.1995.TB01797.X
• Corpus ID: 143224475

The End of Public Space?People's Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy

@article{Mitchell1995TheEO,
  title={The End of Public Space?People's Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy},
  author={Don Mitchell},
  journal={Annals of The Association of American Geographers},
  year={1995},
  volume={85},
  pages={108-133}
}

• D. Mitchell
• Published 1 March 1995
• Sociology
• Annals of The Association of American Geographers

Abstract The nature of public space in contemporary society is changing. This paper uses the turmoil over People's Park in Berkeley, California, as a means for exploring changing ideas about and practices in public space. I argue that as public space is increasingly privatized or otherwise brought under greater control, possibilities for democratic action are minimized. To make this claim, I provide a brief outline of the roots of the August 1991 riots at People's Park. I then examine the role that public space plays in modern democracies, and how ideas about public space have developed dialectically with definitions of who counts as “the public.” In American democracy, “the public” is constituted by private individuals. In this paper, I suggest that the presence of homeless people in public spaces raises important contradictions at the heart of this definition of “the public.” Many commentators suggest that these contradictions have led to “the end of public space” in contemporary cities, or at the very ...