ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces and analyses the idea of urban public space. The chapter explores the complex ways in which public space is produced, by planners but also by users. It also addresses how public space is produced. Public urban space has a mixed character as a concrete abstraction, as a product and as a producer. Good public space is inclusive, loose space that invites a diversity of users and uses. Urban governments attract commercial activity to streets, squares and parks, to help animate them, also to help generate the revenue required to maintain these amenities. One key characteristic that is often used to define public space is accessibility. A dimension that often appears in definitions of public space is the issue of management. Recent analyses suggest urban public space provision is being eroded by the triple threats of privatisation, commercialisation and securitisation. The chapter emphasises the links between events and the emerging literature on temporary uses of urban space.
