ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to characterise what public space is and why it is valuable. To do so, it examines four competing visions of public space that co-exist, somewhat uneasily, in our democratic political culture. These visions, or imaginaries, correspond to four families of normative political views – liberal, egalitarian, civic republican, and democratic. These views provide us with different accounts of what it is that makes public space valuable; they bring into focus distinctive types of threats to public space; and they chart different courses of action for public policy and urban design.
