ABSTRACT
This final chapter brings together the various strands of research reported in the book as a means to draw out conclusions about the management of public space in the post-industrial world. In doing so, gaps are identified between the increasingly dominant and accepted theory of public space decline exacerbated by management processes, and the realities of actual management practice on the ground. From the research a set of 13 key lessons are offered for the development of public space management practice in the future. In a postscript to the book, and in order to focus attention where it is really needed, the results of a fourth and final empirical study are briefly presented that traces what people really want from public space, and what is important to them in making these judgments. The study reveals that academic preoccupations are not always directly reflected in the lived experience of public space. The chapter and the book therefore draws to a close by briefly considering whether practice as it is developing, is meeting the challenges being laid down by the people that really matter, the everyday users of public space – the public.
