Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space

Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space (2004)
By Margaret Kohn

Synopsis: Public life and public space has been increasingly co-opted and usurped by private interests. We should not let out private needs (i.e. need to be left alone, to not be challenged) boil over into the public realm (42). In other words, the public realm should be a zone full of differing interests and views and challenges, and should not just be an extension of out cozy and conflict/challenge-free private realms. Residential Community Associations appear to be a way to get involved with your community, but they really do not encourage interaction within a wider social world or encourage participation as wider citizens (120). She feels there's a difference between the desire for community - which is based on a small-town coziness defined by similar interests and values - and public spiritidness - which "invokes sharing with those who are different" (194). People need a public realm in which they can be exposed to difference.

Interesting Specifics:

1972: Lloyd vs. Tanner rules shopping malls are not free speech zones.

1992: Supreme Court case of Lee vs. Krishna Consciousness rules that airports are not free-speech zones.

We need truly public space because it alerts us to "the irrationalities produced by our society;" to the fact that "our truths are not universal" (59). [I think this is one of her most important parts, and would should the value in looking and in general contact. Is very very Richard Sennett-y; she must have read him.]

Engages With:
Richard Sennett (The Uses of Disorder), Behind the Gates, Celebration Chronicles, Landscapes of Power