Domesticating the Street: The Contested Spaces of the High Street and the Mall

At least since the nineteenth century, if not before (Harrington and Crysler, 1995;

Nead, 1997), streets have been regarded as a lively and contested public domain,

the site of popular protest and political struggle. For Marshall Berman (1988), the

politicisation of the streets was a key component of the 'experience of modernity' as

this public domain became subject to increasing regulation and control. Berman

traces this process through Haussmann's uncompromising 'modernisation' of the

streets of Paris through Le Corbusier's vision of the street as a 'machine for traffic'

to Robert Moses's formidable plans for metropolitan redevelopment in New York.