ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the rationalisation of public space with reference to the thesis that at the turn of the twenty-first century the morphology of cities has been increasingly endowed with the aesthetic and regulatory characteristics of theme park design. It focuses on a number of key themes: social and technological security practices on the South Bank, the regulation of potentially deviant or unruly activities there and the use of signed prohibitions in public space. The chapter employs the security guards as conceptually filling a similar role as agents in the Densification thesis. It starts with a quote from William H. Whyte's ground breaking observational study of the use of public realm in downtown New York City. The chapter explains what Burawoy defines as a theory reconstruction approach to explore the tensions between an ethnographic understanding of the everyday life of a particular urban space and more theoretical pronouncements on how such spaces are regulated and experienced in contemporary society.
