ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the notion of ‘social cohesion’ through the lens of the inclusivity of public spaces in cities. Providing a model of inclusivity for the qualitative assessment of public spaces, it studies the metamorphosis of a historic park in Ankara, Gençlik Park (GP), from its heyday to the present day, regarding the four dimensions of ‘access’ in relation to design, management, control and use processes, beside the contextual aspect of the inclusivity–exclusivity continuum of public–private spaces. Revealing the ‘multiple’, ‘site-specific’ and ‘interrelated’ causes and issues behind the inclusivity of the park, it shows how GP’s original design, which has been modified several times over the last 90 years, changed its inclusivity and thereby its contribution to social cohesion in the city. The chapter concludes that, although the ‘inclusive’ nature of public spaces is evolutionary and contextual in character within a space–time continuum, the continuous presence of democratic and egalitarian procedural accessibility, which embraces all segments of the public, and whose deliberation is used as the mechanism to ensure a consensual rather than authoritarian style of interaction, is a requirement for generating and maintaining inclusive public spaces. This will ultimately help achieve social cohesion.
