ABSTRACT
This chapter postulates that the involvement of residents in the production of residential public spaces engenders new forms of regulation. It examines the way in which social control is embedded in the social and symbolic meanings associated with space, as much as it is enacted through physical repression. The chapter also examines how a punitive approach has been established as an analytic framework in the study of exclusionary dynamics in public spaces. It argues that this approach ignores ordinary public spaces and their everyday uses. The chapter discusses the notion of home, in order to understand the relationship between people and their environment. It demonstrates how power relations within a residential neighbourhood result from conflictual dwelling practices in public space, using Shaughnessy Village in Montreal as a case study. The chapter concludes with reflections on the impacts of a symbolic transformation of the landscape, and on the subtle forms of power that are inscribed in the values of space.
