ABSTRACT
On March 3, 2003, a lawyer named Stephen Downs was arrested for trespassing at the Crossgate Mall in Guilderland, New York, a small town near Albany. He did not sneak into the mall after hours or enter some “employees only” part of the property. According to Downs, the security guards tried to convince him to comply with their orders, arguing that the mall was “like a private house” and therefore he was acting inappropriately. Downs believed that his right to political expression was protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The incident at the Crossgate Mall is emblematic of restrictions on political expression proliferating across the United States. It illustrates the political impact of the privatization of public space. Gated communities proliferate in the suburbs, and Business Improvement Districts—now numbering over one thousand in the United States alone—create privileged zones within the city.
