ABSTRACT
Contemporary public space has undergone radical transformation during the last decade, a result of intense global production. The highlighted cases from Europe, Asia, Africa and North America reveal diverse stories not only of how public spaces are hybridized into new global locales of high-status consumerism, but also how neglected places in these cities are regenerated into green spaces of emancipating cultural alternatives. The diversification and evolution in the conventions of regulation, surveillance and control range from mild forms of aesthetic upgrading, touristification, and domestication by Cappuccino to harder police control and disciplination as a response to social aggravation and unrest in public spaces which ultimately lead to the disappearance of otherness. Terrorist acts are the most radical negative form of contestation, and currently turn public spaces of major cities in Europe and the United States into a battleground of a new anti-Western war.
