Introduction

Times Square, that iconic landmark in Manhattan, is the stage of a curious occurrence chronicled by the New York Times on October 18, 2007. Significantly, Times Square is the only neighborhood in New York with a zoning ordinance requiring tenants to display bright signs. Standing on the sidewalk with friends, Mr. Jones’s lawyer argued is not entirely without precedent in Manhattan. After all, as a visitor to Times Square commented, nobody can walk in Times Square. The United States, just like any other society, has produced its own space, or as Henri Lefebvre writes in The Production of Space, a space that is not natural or preordained. Lefebvre develops what he calls a "conceptual triad"—Edward Soja would later term it a "trialectics of spatiality"—to address the different vortexes of his analysis: spatial practices, representations of space, and representational spaces. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.