Comparing (In)security in public spaces

Comparing (In)Security in Public Spaces

 

Sophie Body-Gendrot

 

The transformation of cities challenged by phenomena of globalization brings along issues of conflicts and unrest. How does this process affect public spaces in cities ? When global cities are confronted to risks and threats, do public spaces contribute to the problems and/or the solutions? Such cities are indeed the key targets of skilled terrorists, of violent organized gangs and, less dramatically, of actors exerting various forms of actions, 'voices' and protests in the public space. While there are convergences in social and economic forces at work, differences do occur in the public or private forms of control which are mobilized, according to country, region and city and they are best understood with a comparative approach.

The paper deals with contested definitions of public spaces and with   ruptures in order. Public space is indeed a resource for political invention, for disorganizing society in view of a better world. Public space reveals the users' social competence.

Historically, bottom-up mobilizations and disorders have been checked by city officials in the name of order by all sorts of tools (among which municipal ordinances and stops and searches) with more or less tough or lenient efficacy.

Private actors are also worth studying. They develop their own strategies of appropriation of public spaces in order to maintain spatial hierarchies. New boundaries result from separate worlds having to share some of the city, one way or another. Control of heterogeneous users in public spaces is then more appropriate than a mere separation of worlds ignoring one another. But how does it affect public space?  In brief, the general questions set by this paper are: Can cities solve social/political conflicts via public spaces ? Which cities ? What do we learn from comparisons ?