CHAPTER 3: LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL PRECEDENTS
3.10 Who has rights to Public Space?
58 examine how mechanisms privatise public space and the challenges arising from the privatisation of space.
59 functioning of public space. The main point is that democratic public spaces are eliminated when municipalities and businesses assert security of the city (Graham, 1995).
When private interests provide security or make rules for a public space, they can directly or indirectly exclude certain groups or types of people. There are public spaces that seem to be accessible to all, but are privately owned and controlled through security and surveillance.
Middle/upper classes see order, comfort, and security as imperative to a properly functioning public space, and seek to exclude those groups who do not fit their descriptions of order, comfort and security (Ploeg, 2006).
Davis examines the privatisation of public space as one that is used for the deliberate segregation of classes in the Los Angeles city. Los Angeles is, according to many authors, a paradigmatic example of a large, contemporary postmodern metropolis (Soja, 1989). This city has become, according to Davis, the epitome of the fragmented, stereotyped city, being riddled with crime and thus promoting fear, in which "most of the bungalows in the inner ring now tend to resemble cages in a zoo. The working class families must now lock themselves in every night from the zombified city outside" (Davis, 1992: 7).
Davis makes several points that state that the privatisation of space in the city is for the main purpose of creating elitist enclaves and armouring the city against the poorer people. The redeveloped areas ought not to be entertaining vagrants and vagabonds or the homeless, as this projects negative connotations concerning development for the city. Also, the middle and upper class should desire to occupy the inner-city and therefore the poor ought not to prevail in areas of intended investment in the city. ―This armouring is done so that the middle and upper classes will not be deterred from living within the city‖ (Davis, 1992: 160-161). ―In areas where middle and lower classes may potentially cross paths, precautions are taken to ensure their separation‖ (Davis, 1992:163).
Through privatisation, the use value of space is being undermined and space is thus becoming less and less public, causing particular groups of people to be excluded. ―In an era of the minimalist state, the economy and the private sector has transformed the role of the state in protection of public space in the inner city‖ (Davis, 1990; Ellin, 1996; Zukin, 1991). From this perspective, much of civic life now occurs in privately owned spaces such as shopping malls and entertainment malls that are not accessible to all people (Davis, 1990). Also in
60 insecure cities, both the private companies and government are colonising public space and ensuring policing of space for their own use of that space (Mitchell, 1995).
Public space also has to keep up with the image of being a positive and prosperous space where progress is witnessed for people‘s viewing. Therefore, the poor accessing public spaces brings with it a negative connation of poverty and a lack of development in the city. Davis states that securities of public spaces are there to prevent the rich interacting with the poor.
Davis asserts that the modern obsession with security ruins any chance for urban reform and social integration, since it has become a form of social warfare that ―supports the interests of the middle class against the welfare of the urban poor‖ (Davis, 1992: 155).
In the inner-city area especially, private ownership through acquisition does not always suggest that the space may be wholly reserved for private use. Even private properties by law need to reserve specific areas for public space, through title deeds and leases. Examples are Times Square, pedestrian passages (such as the walkway in Central Plaza in Hong Kong).
Although these are under their private ownership, they are supposed to be accessible open spaces (Hong Kong Institute of Planning, 2001).
Non-paying public space is under state ownership, but private ownership has become popular in inner-city areas for investment and fast-paced development. This indicates that government has developed a new role in terms of public space. It is no longer the owner in terms of just leasing out public space, rather, it has become a mechanism for the regulation of public space which has become the greatest commodity in the inner-city area (Landman, 2004).
Nevertheless, the law of private property in cities is concerned, not with the democratic interests of the public, but has rather prioritised the consumption and capital interests of minority groups. Laws governing public spaces in cities have therefore become biased in the sense that they assert special rights to purchasers over those of users of spaces (Minton, 2006).
The privileged capitalist, consumer class of corporate individuals thereby colonise, in a sense, space in the city. Yet the irony is that only national and local governments contain the power and authority to renegotiate legislation. Nevertheless, due to neoliberal trends and capitalist global pressure, governments have a weaker hold on rights and are unable to ―secure rights to
61 public space through democratic processes and institutions‖. The state is, initially, the owner of public space as the government is a servant to public and civil interests (Mitchell, 1995).
Private property laws give disproportionate powers to purchasers; there are several examples of state-owned public spaces that are also becoming more exclusive and less public, due to the influence of corporate and private market individuals and consumer citizenship. Moreover, many public spaces that were once spaces of leisure and social gathering are being sold off to the private sector to minimise the financial costs of maintaining the space and development of public spaces that is financially unviable for local government‘s capacity (Landman, 2004).