(URS2) Public-private Dynamics of Urban Spaces

Despite unprecedented waves of privatization of public space and concomitant encroachments, such as commercialization, regulation, and sanitization, being in public spaces remains a fundamental component of our urban experiences. The increasingly complex public-private dynamics of urban spaces offer analytical insights into understanding how cities remain sites of publicness. Taking an expansive scope on various forms of urban spaces, this session explores themes of: participatory practices in developing urban spaces; the production of urban spaces through retail/economic activities; and, how the hybrid nature of urban spaces impacts, and is simultaneously impacted by sociability and conflict within these spaces. Tags: Communities, Rural And Urban

Organizers: Meng Xu, University of Guelph, Devan Hunter, University of Guelph; Chair: Devan Hunter, University of Guelph

Presentations

Charmain Levy, Université du Québec en Outaouais

The urban commons as a concept of urban citizenship: 2 case studies in Bologna, Italy

The urban commons as a concept and social practice represents a new socio-economic and territorial logic in sustainable urbanism. They take different forms and include several social groups, generating a multitude of ideas and practices, sometimes new and sometimes in continuity with the past. We explore how experiences of the urban commons contribute to debates in urban sociology, particularly around issues of citizen participation and urban governance. Through two case studies of urban commons in the city of Bologna we will analyse the structural and contextual conditions that led to their creation and the associative dynamics developed. This article offers an overview of how these projects contribute to participatory territorial development by comparing six different elements: the needs targeted and met; inclusion and democratic practices; the political aspect; ecological values and practices; feminist values and practices; and the appropriation of urban space.

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Non-presenting author: Marco Alberio, University of Bologna

Yang Li, University of Toronto

Placemaking through Local Retail Activities

The theories and concepts of placemaking have been widely accepted and adopted as the central philosophical cornerstone guiding urban regeneration in the developed world. Placemaking has been heavily focused on the cultural and residential aspects of the city. However, the involvement of the commercial sector, namely that of the local retail businesses, has been mostly left out of the discussion. This analysis seeks to connect these two independently analyzed topics through a case study of grass-root oriented retail entrepreneurship by African American community in Chicago. This analysis seeks to adopt the analytical lens of placemaking to gain a deeper understanding of the local entrepreneurial initiative in Chicago. Namely, I seek to identify what values and meanings are assigned to entrepreneurship in traditionally underserved communities in this case study; as well as to examine what the rise of such business initiatives signifies for inner cities or historically struggling retail areas at the community level. This project also seeks to comprehend the process by which this phenomenon unfolds, exploring the factors that shape it, the challenges and uncertainties involved, the lessons that can be gleaned by others, and the strategies that can be employed to promote this form of entrepreneurship. The concept of placemaking first came into prominence in the 1970s through the connection between space and place (Tuan, 1977). Placemaking concept was further refined in the coming decades with connection with the politicization of urban spaces and urban citizenship. The current trend in placemaking discussion is focused on the topic of urban formality: whereas the meanings and values assigned to the space is done through a formally planned process where a higher economic or political power asserts its influence on the use and meanings assigned to the space (Akbar et al., 2020; Akbar et al., 2021). On the other hand, the blurring of the public-private dichotomy of space (Madden, 2010), along with the rise of grassroot movements in urban spaces lead to the increasing recognition of informal spaces. Informal spaces are traditionally not a part of the officially planned use of urban spaces and its existence has often been seen as a phenomenon in the global south (Lombard, 2015). However, recent scholarship and policy trends in the global north demonstrate that grassroot oriented informal placemaking has been active in global north cities, though it is still heavily associated with disadvantaged communities (Varley, 2013). A major gap in the study of placemaking is its overwhelming focus in the residential and cultural spheres. Observations and analysis of small-scale economic activities, especially that of the retail sector have been absent in the current placemaking literature (Sutton, 2010). On the other hand, the growth of small businesses and grassroot entrepreneurial activities have been well studied in urban economic development literature. However, little effort has been made in the current urban economic development literature to explore the small business aspect of urban spaces through a placemaking perspective (Blair and Carroll, 2015). This means that there are two parallel scholarly traditions on the subject and this analysis seeks to join them through a case study taking place in Chicago. A new movement is currently taking place in the African American community in Chicago. A social enterprise known as the TREND Corporation in Chicago has been seeking to stimulate urban retail developments in the area. This project seeks to bring community revitalization by encouraging members of the disadvantaged inner-city communities to participate in business activities with both economically and socially valuable. The goal of this project is to empower more than 340 African American residents and small impact investors to own five neighborhood shopping centers in the city. Methodogically, this project seeks to conduct structured interviews with the stakeholders of this project, namely, the funders and managements of the TREND Corporation in Chicago, the community investors, banking and CDFI personnels who have been involved in financing this project, residents of the neighborhoods where the businesses are located, property management teams, and philanthropists. The final goal of the analysis is to understand how small business initiatives are creating spaces in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and also to identify the patterns of placemaking through grassroot economic growths in these neighborhoods.

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Non-presenting author: Qingfang Wan, University of California, Riverside

Meng Xu, University of Guelph

The Mall as Everyday Space of Publicness: Accounts from Sanlitun Taikoo Li, Beijing

Scholars contest the role of malls as public spaces. While some treat malls as the spatial and symbolic materialization of urban fragmentation, exclusion, securitization, homogenization, and capitalist consumerism, others excavate the potential of malls as de facto spaces for encounters, performance of identities, and political action. Informed by and extending these latter strands of literature, I propose the concept of everyday space of publicness as an exploratory lens for analyzing ways in which urban inhabitants (re)produce the mall as public. Approaching publicness as a socio-spatial characteristic emerging from mall users’ practices, encounters, and interpretations of their experiences, everyday space of publicness sensitizes us to the specific processes by which commercialized spaces become publicized. The concept of everyday space of publicness is developed and exemplified using an ethnographic case study of Taikoo Li, an open-air mall in Beijing’s Sanlitun district. Analyzing mall life in Taikoo Li, I show how it becomes an everyday space of publicness across three dimensions: (1) spontaneous social activities; (2) cooperative practices of regulation between vendors and security guards; and (3) mall users’ tactful interpretations of the publicness they experience and produce. Although the mall is not a site for absolutely unfiltered encounters, it generates “affordances of sociability” across social differences (Horgan et al. 2020, 147). Despite the omnipresent regulation and surveillance imposed by mall authorities, participants in the unsanctioned economy actively use the mall to defend their right to the city. While mall owners deliberately seek to enhance consumption, mall users reinterpret it as an urban space for public life, unbeholden to consumerist logic.

Saara Liinamaa, University of Guelph; Meg Aebig, University of Guelph

At the dog park: Symbolic boundaries and everyday sociability

This paper examines dog parks as distinctive public spaces where the personal and public collide. Based on ethnographic observations at municipally sanctioned and unsanctioned ‘off-leash’ public parks, we are interested in the socio-spatial context and content of dog park interactions. This approach responds to a growing body of work on sociability and/in public spaces in the social sciences (Valentine 2008; Wise and Velayutham 2009; Lowe 2023). Curiously, dog parks as social spaces exhibit above average sociability and above average conflict compared to other everyday public leisure spaces. There have been many high-profile dog park conflicts in the news, including a serious dog attack on a child at an informal school green space in Toronto and a dog dispute turned assault on a dog walker by another dog walker at a designated dog park in Vancouver. Yet at the same time, dog parks are increasingly important sites for regular, sociable interaction in urban public space. By virtue of the mix of necessity and regularity, the dog park can become a key point of social contact within many pet owners’ lives. While there is considerable interest in underscoring the positive effects of dog facilitated social interactions for communities (Bulsara et al. 2007), there is the risk of generalizing or simplifying sociological understanding of these processes. Accordingly, in order to better understand the social life of the dog park and its mix of sociability and conflict, this paper emphasizes the role of symbolic boundaries (Lamont and Molnár 2002). Drawing on examples from our research, we will discuss the production, maintenance, and crossing of symbolic boundaries of various kinds (waste, personal space, class, gender, race and ethnicity, mobility, species). In particular, we will address instances that blur the boundary between public and private in unexpected ways, and to either sociable or conflictual ends. We use this case study to demonstrate how strong symbolic and spatial boundaries facilitate heightened positive and negative interactional unpredictability in public spaces.