Who’s the public anyways?

Have we reached the end of the public space? In his essay regarding the public space, Don Mitchell proposes this question; throughout the paper he also questions how a public space should be utilized and who exactly the public is. Mitchell wrote about the tug-of-war that has been going on for years regarding the People’s Park in California; the debate centered on whether the park belonged to the public or the university. Whether the Park was a place for the public without intervention from the university or government or if it was an ordered and controlled place for the public.

In my town there were only two places that kids could go to where they could just sit or play around or simply just be kids; one was the local mall and the other were the woods that ran throughout the town. If they went to the local Friendly’s they were expected to buy food or leave, if they went into any of the shops, the owners keep a close eye on them fearing that one or all might steal. The mall was a heaven for the teenagers; after each school day a sea of them would flow to the mall and simply do nothing. It wasn’t about buying clothes or watching a movie, they used it as their only place to just be with their friends, away from school. But three years ago, the shop owners petitioned and won for a new law to be passed; no one under the age of 18 could be in the mall without a guardian. And once again the kids were left with nowhere to go. It was a public mall, for the public; however, the local government decided that the public of the mall were only those above the age of 18. The mall became a representation of space, planned and controlled.

Key terms =

The public

Representational space vs. representations of space

Difference between open space and public space

Main Concepts =

Two different ideological positions; public space as a place of unmediated political interaction, and public space as a place of order, controlled recreation and spectacle.

Public space occupies an important ideological position in democratic society= we need it.

Media is a public sphere, however, it cannot be the only public sphere, a materialized one is needed- because a fully electronic public space further more renders some of the public (homeless) voiceless.