Talk:Public space

media and public space
hey, i think the definition of public space should be broader and also include webforums, or radiobandwith, or open fileservers, --85.28.83.179 20:32, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, the internet and ham radio, for that matter, are public space, but not in the architectural sense. Fred Talk 18:03, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * To avoid confusion, I suggest using the term "public sphere" by Jurhen Habermas as definition of virtual discussion space. dudenas (talk) 11:40, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposed merge
I see that someone has proposed merging gathering place into this article. I tend to think this is a bad idea, because gathering places aren't necessarily public; in fact, several of the examples listed in the article are private spaces (churches, coffee shops, pubs). I've changed the tag to for now. &mdash;smably 23:03, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed - although gathering place should have a link to this page, I'll go do that now...--Cooper-42 00:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)


 * i agree as well. i was checking this link because i have it in an article i'm working on (BookCrossing) and if it were merged with gathering place it would not be fitting. It would in fact be the opposite. - flipjargendy 18:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * i agree with the posts above, and would go so far as to suggest that it should be delineated through the text 'public space' that often the term itself is misunderstood or misappropriated.
 * i'll try and take this on without it turning into an overly long page, which it could, easily!.
 * I do not think that these can be merged. very simply, the wiki-definition of gathering place uses the word "private" saying that a gathering place could be public or private.
 * I don't think they can be merged simply because a public space is a gathering space but a gathering space is not necessarily a public space. - Comment left by Special:Contributions/74.67.251.167 on 18:22, October 9, 2006


 * by the same token, baseball is a sport, but a sport is not just baseball...see the point? - Comment left by Special:Contributions/134.53.50.69 on 10:02, November 28, 2006


 * I agree with the other comments above. No need for a merge. Strawberry Island 16:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I left a note for User:Lapaz to comment on why s/he wanted to merge the article. Strawberry Island 17:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I take here "public spaces" in the broad sense of the term &mdash; it does not hereby designates governmental spaces, but spaces accessible to general public. Hence, in this sense of the word, coffee-shops, etc., do qualifies as "public spaces", as they are not restricted to a specific type of persons (workers of the place, etc.) So is a church (open to all who desires to attend religious matters). But a factory isn't (entrance restricted to workers). The merge should be done in order to avoid overlapping and dispersion. If you folks feel a distinction must be made between a broad use of the term "public spaces" and a more restricted use, this should be done, but not, IMHO, by creating possible confusions. Lapaz 20:22, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, your definition of "public space" clearly conflicts with the one used in this article. If you disagree with the article's definition, you should resolve that before trying to merge in other articles according to your idea of a public space. (Besides, some gathering places are unambiguously private. Consider private clubs, for example. I don't think there's any ambiguity there.) →smably 04:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm reading this as a pretty strong consensus against merging, so I removed the tag.  Misha t x  *разговор* 04:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

A book I was looking at, Watch this Space: Designing, Defending, and Sharing Public Spaces defines "social space" as "public or private spaces where people come together", so a bar (pub) or a mall is a social space but not public space. In the United States, constitutionally protected activities such as soliciting signatures on political petitions are limited to public spaces, as opposed to privately owned and controlled social spaces such as malls. This is a very useful book as it is a young adult book which explicitly covers elementary concepts which might otherwise be understood, but hard to source. ISBN 9781554532933 Fred Talk 18:13, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

coffee
hey....who likes coffe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rocstar20 (talk • contribs) 14:49, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

socially constructed
I'm thinking about adding a page about a section on how public space is socially consturcted. doeas anyone have good referances,opinions, or ideas? Sherdonna (talk) 19:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC) I've recently contributed to the Controversy an Privitization section. Does anyone have feed back as to furthering of definishion?Sherdonna (talk) 02:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Places are constructed, constructed not simply in the physical engineering sense, but more profoundly that they are objects given meaning by a subject and that their reality is thereby socially structured and socially contingent. It follows from this that place is an idea as well as an object and likely to have a multiple reality to groups with varied concerns.’ (Ley, 1983: 133) Ley, David. (1983) A Social Geography of The City. New York: Harper and Row Publishers
 * Quote***

Its a fairly old source but, its a start :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dh1986 (talk • contribs) 22:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

removing/modifying examples section
I propose to modify the examples section. It is not only confusing, but it is an incorrect at worst and misleading at best, because the difference in laws that govern people's actions in a particular space is merely a derivative of the real difference between a public and private space -- namely, fact that there is a difference in the entity which owns the space. What you can or cannot do in a 'public space' is determined by the legislation of your city/county/parish/state, depending on whether it is a city/county/parish/state owned space (e.g. state parks have different regulations than city parks), while what you can or cannot do in a sidewalk cafe is regulated by what the cafeowner defines as appropriate behavior on his property. The examples section as it currently stands also misleadingly sends the message that the biggest difference between public and private space is that the former is 'free', whereas in fact public space is owned by the public, which means that the public space is maintained by the public (and this is where some of your tax dollars are going.)


 * The proposal to close many parks in Detroit illustrates the distinction between social public space and mere public ownership. If the gates are closed the public space is no longer social space in the ordinary sense. Fred Talk 18:23, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

restrict access to public areas to residents only
Here is a link to a pdf. that explains it all.

http://classweb.gmu.edu/jkozlows/lawarts/10OCT01.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.181.60.179 (talk) 12:18, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

The negative side of public space - apartheid dynamics, curfews, military and police presence, criminality
I am browsing the bibliography about public space from an African perspective and in particular about South Africa there is a quite large literature about how public space is actually a space of fear due to apartheid dynamics, curfews, military and police presence, criminality. It is quite impressive that it really completely upsets the positive definition of public space we are used to. A shared space is private, intimate, inside homes and protected. --Iopensa (talk) 14:31, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
 * A Dawson, Geography of fear: crime and the transformation of public space in post-apartheid South Africa in The Politics of Public Space, ed. Setha M. Low, Neil Smith, Routledge, 2006.

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Are malls public space?
I came across this sentence at the top of this article today and questioned it:

"Malls, regardless of private ownership percentage, are examples of 'public space' since no fees or paid tickets are required for entry. [citation needed]"

I’m not great at research, so I’ll drop this one source below and open the floor. I’m very curious for others’ perspectives: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/quasi-public-places Thanks & please let me know if there’s a better way to discuss/fact check this — I’m new to editing/discussing on Wikipedia! RarelyJeremy (talk) 17:02, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Why was my edit reverted?
My edit got reverted, even though the article I cited said that Wikipedia IS a public space. Can anyone explain why? Username142857 (talk) 02:06, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Because you need a reliable source for this. Wikipedia isn't one. There's also the distinction between real physical public spaces and online public spaces which are so-called through an analogy with physical public spaces. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:07, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, ok! Username142857 (talk) 05:12, 19 February 2022 (UTC)