ABSTRACT
This synthesis of the public space literature leads to the identification of five meta dimensions of publicness: ownership, control, civility, physical configuration and animation. Each dimension ranges from ‘more public’ to ‘less public’. Although meaning, and indeed power, is not discussed as a specific dimension of publicness, it informs and affects the perception of the five dimensions (i.e., the sense of publicness). Control corresponds to what they term the panoptic approach, featuring explicit control of space; the privatization of space; the private management of publicly accessible space; an explicit policing presence (especially the presence of security guards); CCTV systems as tools of control; covert surveillance systems; exclusion of people/ groups; and the erosion of civil liberties. Operationalizing the model involves three tasks-identifying appropriate indicators for each meta dimension, calibrating and then combining (i.e., by weighting or a formula) those indicators into a single score/rating for each meta dimension.
