CHAPTER 3: LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL PRECEDENTS
3.8 International and Local Precedent Studies
This section of the chapter examines three interventions using precedent studies to place in context public space within city centres. This precedent study will discuss and illustrate modern and contemporary examples to explain how public spaces are used and viewed in different case study contexts. Also, international case study examples will be used to reveal alternative methodologies and differences in the nature of public space, both from both social and spatial perspectives.
This section explains further the different uses and contexts of public space by discussing how different public spaces in different cities are used, controlled, regulated and privatised for diverse reasons and purposes. The review of different case studies of public spaces reinforces the substantial evidence that public space is not defined by one universal term. It is appropriately defined by entities that have created public spaces in cities and use it for their different purposes.
Public space, although being used for different reasons, either maintained by public or private entities, could, in all cases, be privatised providing the common denominator in all case studies. Privatisation occurs through the enforcement of law or security, or zoning by the government, or private development which has a direct impact on people‘s access to and use of it. Both international and national case studies have been revealed below. The context of public space has been discovered in different city contexts such as New York, London, Cape Town and Johannesburg.
3.8.1 The Privatisation of Public Space in New York City, USA
New York City is a prime inner city area where public space is being privatised rapidly for development. It has often been an example for major cities in the US and around the world, and has, therefore, been highlighted as a contemporary example of a city with great amounts of privatisation of public space. In New York, with a population exceeding 20 million people, the metropolitan area exhibited a great demand to be regularised by urban policies.
52 Privatised public space policy was initiated in the United States of America and this policy, called BIDs, has proven to be extremely contentious. Supporters of the policy state that privatisation of space has led to significant improvements in maintenance and use and add that there has been rapid improvement in the public realm which has been enabled due to the policy.
Whyte (1988) states that, since the 1980s, approximately 1.1 million square feet of new public open space was created in New York City. New York has more public space than any other city in the United States. Kayden (2000) states that New York City has over the past two decades had about 503 public spaces privatised under the influence of the 1961 Incentive Inner City Zoning policy. This is an accumulation of over 82 acres of public space coming under private ownership in the city, with 10% of public space being privately owned in Central Park alone. However, in New York, the impacts of the privatisation of public space are more severe, as there are differences between BIDs and new developments in the UK and the US.
The privatisation of public space is a clear concept, as we understand that space is popularly being privately owned and managed, the implications of BIDs and the organisation‘s affiliation to local government, particularly, bears examination. In the US, BIDs reflects the rise of private sector governance, but in the UK, where the policy is not as influential, the question is whether policy will provide benefits for local government, or whether it signals the erosion of local authority which means democratic control of the public realm.
On the one hand, it is because of a shortage of available funds from government that every new public space in the city now requires finance in order for it to be maintained and thus spaces are required, by law, to be privatised. On the other hand:
contemporary regulations create an incentive for business to step into this breach. For instance, in 1961, Minton (2006) states that New York City instituted a zoning resolution that granted developers contributing to creation and/or maintenance of public space a bonus floor area ratio of up to 20 percent of the total floor area of their building. The bigger the contribution to public space for development, the bigger the bonus. This means that a covered pedestrian space with significant social amenities provides up to 12:1 FAR bonus to the developer, whereas a sidewalk widening renders
53 a mere 3:1 bonus (Minton, 2006). The upshot is that, for every square foot of indoor public space built, a developer is allowed to construct an additional 12 sqft of residential or commercial space on top of the allowed zoning code
According to Carr, (1992) owners and managers of privatised public spaces incorporate public welfare, visual enhancement, environmental conservation and economic sustainability of space and will prevent dilapidation and decay. Therefore, zoning of public space has become popular to offer facets of public space to different entities who wanted to purchase it. The zoning permits private developers to construct structures that exceed standard floor-area- ratios and height restrictions if they are able to create public space within their private developments.
Privatisation of public space has been formalised under incentive zoning policies, which government finds effective in the regulation of space in the United States. The demands to regulate the private provision of public space have heightened and society‘s increasing needs for better access and use of public spaces has encouraged planning legislatures and authorities to adopt higher design standards and maintenance.
Nevertheless, critics have argued that privatising or control over space is undemocratic and has created controlled, exclusionary enclaves and segregation in the urban environment. The class segregation has also been intensified as public space has separated classes into districts, such as the elite from the ghettos, which has caused social problems in neighbourhood districts. Critics find the process contradictory, as the same process has led to citizens‘ lack of access to and exclusion from public spaces. They believe that public spaces have lost their nature of openness, especially in New York City.
In addition, public space developments are known for their private security presence and the banning of specific behaviours such as begging or rollerblading or cycling. According to Minton, (2006:4) ―They also share a vision of public space as a consumer product, sold through the branding and marketing of the area as a ‗location destination‘, offering a particular ‗experience' (Minton, 2006). Supporters of this approach see this as a strength, differentiating one location from another, while critics state that this has resulted in homogenous spaces, where disneyification and globalisation has blended public spaces which now all have the same neutral appeal and look.
54 3.8.2 The Privatisation of Public Space in Broad Gate Estate and Canary Wharf,
London
Broad Gate, is a development that is approximately 30 acres in size. It was purchased by British land companies and is managed by Broad Gate Estates. This company mostly deals with the management and privatisation of public estates. They ensure inner-city renewal and maintain city estates so as to allow for financial resources to be consistent for renewal and to avoid estate decay (Minton, 2006).
The Broad Gate Centre and Canary Wharf are among the initial developments and are a prime example of the privatisation of public space which was developed in the 1990s. Booms in the economy in the 1990s resulted in urban development for the purposes of economic development. Broad Gate and Canary Wharf were at the time the first key developments to redirect the needs of the new economy, as office space was also required to support the booms in the service sector and business (Minton, 2006).
In terms of the privatisation of public space for security; private security companies ensure surveillance by patrolling the estate, 24 hours a day (Minton, 2006). According to access rights, private security officers are not allowed to exclude citizens from using the public space although, as private property, they are permitted to use request removals of users of the space.
The public space has been designed to enhance the impacts of security; an inward-looking design permits it to be an enclave of public space which would only attract wealthy employees. The high-class techno buildings will appear attractive to the upper class business elite.