Jeremy Németh

The Privatization of Public Space: Modeling and Measuring Publicness

Privately owned public spaces are frequently criticized for diminishing the publicness of public space by restricting social interaction, constraining individual liberties, and excluding undesirable populations. This study empirically determines whether, as is commonly believed, privately owned public spaces are more controlled than publicly owned spaces. To frame our empirical work, we propose a conceptual model that identifies publicness as the interaction between the ownership, management, and uses/users of a space. We then examine the management dimension using an observation-based index to assess spatial management paradigms in publicly and privately owned spaces. We find that the use of the private sector to provide publicly accessible space leads to increased control over use, behavior, and access. Furthermore, while both publicly and privately owned public spaces tend equally to encourage public use and access, managers of privately owned spaces tend to employ more features that control behavior within those spaces. More specifically, spatial control in privately owned spaces is normally achieved through the use of surveillance and policing techniques as well as design measures that ‘code’ spaces as private. Important findings are presented for planners, policy makers, and others concerned with the future of publicly accessible spaces.

Toward a Methodology for Measuring the Security of Publicly Accessible Spaces

Abstract Safety and security are essential components of urban public space management, particularly since September 11, 2001. Although security is necessary for creating spaces the public will use, making it a top priority is often criticized for restricting social interaction, constraining individual liberties, and unjustly excluding certain populations. This study examines legal, design, and policy tools used to exert social and behavioral control in publicly accessible urban spaces. Based on a review of the relevant literature and extensive site visits to spaces in New York City, we create an index that uses 20 separate indicators in four broad categories to quantify the degree to which the use of a space is controlled. Since comparable instruments do not exist, we propose our index be used to evaluate publicly accessible spaces. We suggest several potential applications useful in planning practice and for testing theories about public space.

Controlling the Commons: How Public Is Public Space?

In this paper, I outline and test a framework for analyzing control and freedom in urban public space. The framework, based on a model of the commons developed by legal scholar Lawrence Lessig, assesses control across three layers: physical, code, and content. I deploy the framework in a case involving a controversial proposal to erect a six-foot-high iron fence around Philadelphia’s iconic Independence National Historical Park. The framework proves a robust conceptual and operational means for analyzing how intended actions impact personal and group freedoms.

Space, Place and the City: Emerging Research on Public Space Design and Planning

Our understanding of urban public space has evolved dramatically in recent decades. On the heels of urban race riots and civil strife in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the social sciences—in particular, the fields of social geography, urban planning and legal studies—began to take a more critical look at the role of space and place in understanding the city. The debate was framed by philosophers like Henri Lefebvre who argued that space should not be merely thought of as a physical place, a neutral container or backdrop for action, but as an entity actively produced by society. How space is produced and experienced, and by whom, became the question of the day. Works by Kevin Lynch (1960), Jane Jacobs (1961) and Gordon Cullen (1961) supported these notions, arguing that the urban environment shapes our behaviour, knowledge and disposition. This produced an unprecedented interdisciplinary interest in critically examining the role of power, race, gender, identity and representation in public space. Chief among these attempts to theorize social space and its implications for the public sphere was Habermas’s theories of communicative rationality, with which he argued that unmediated interaction was vital to advancing social justice in a true democracy (Calhoun, 1992). Although this work offered potential solutions to the growing fissures in urban society, some, including Iris Young (1990), were sceptical of communicative rationality, arguing that such theories assumed a homogeneous, universal ‘public’. Instead, Young offered a version of a democratic ideal that emphasized diversity and difference. For her, socially just outcomes could only be achieved by creating universally inclusive spaces that embraced the needs and desires of a diverse citizenry. These truly public spaces encourage social interaction among individuals with diverse interests, opinions and perspectives. Groups and individuals thus assert their right to the city by making themselves directly visible in public space (Fraser, 1990; Németh, 2006). That public spaces serve social ends is neither surprising nor groundbreaking; after all, urban reformers, city planners and municipal officials since the nineteenth century have claimed that public space serves a number of social and political ends, from public health to cultural assimilation (Schmidt, 2008). What is new, however, is that instead of serving as a means to an end, the production of public space is now interpreted as a normative goal unto itself. Nevertheless, much of this discussion

Assessing Learning Outcomes in U.S. Planning Studio Courses

This paper proposes a model for assessing learning outcomes specific to planning studio courses. We begin by reviewing literature on learning outcomes found in education theory, and summarize a generalized model for outcomes assessment. Next, we review the planning literature on learning outcomes, then present a snapshot of contemporary learning outcomes assessment in planning studio courses as informed by content analyses of syllabi and interviews with studio instructors. Finally, we propose a studio-specific assessment model, and conclude with some recommendations for accreditation guidelines for learning outcomes assessment.

Security in Public Space: An Empirical Assessment of Three US Cities

Critics often mourn a loss of publicness in cities due to the increased presence of antiterror security zones and related behavioral and access controls, although recent work suggests that security landscapes have shifted from the hard, intense, militarized architecture of the late 1990s–early 2000s to a softer, less obtrusive approach more commonly seen today. Nonetheless, these studies are mostly anecdotal in nature: few studies attempt to back these claims with empirical evidence and even fewer connect this physical security imposition with the policies and plans governing its implementation and operation. In this paper I describe results of site visits to Civic Centers and Financial Districts in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In each neighborhood I catalog security landscapes using a simple tool to assess the intensity, duration, and location of individual security zones. I find that the security landscape covers between 3.4% and 35.7% of publicly accessible space in the districts studied, and that this landscape is most prevalent and intense in New York City. I also find that security zones governed by multistakeholder networks are more intense and militarized than zones managed by a single entity. By understanding how the policies impact physical security, albeit in a relatively small sample of cities and districts, we can better predict what the future of urban security measures might hold. This paper provides empirical grounding to more common theoretical speculations regarding the future of the urban security landscape in the global West.

Planning for Marijuana: The Cannabis Conundrum

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Twenty-three states and Washington, DC, have legalized medical marijuana, raising difficult land use questions for planners regarding allowable locations, buffering from sensitive uses, and distribution of facilities. We know little about how local jurisdictions regulate medical marijuana dispensary (MMD) location and operation and how equitably different regulatory models distribute these facilities. We begin with an overview of MMD impacts related to crime, property values, and quality of life. We then review emerging local regulation of MMDs with a particular emphasis on land use controls, and find that most authorities regulate MMD location like they do other locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) such as sex-oriented businesses and liquor stores. Given a history of siting LULUs in less-affluent neighborhoods and communities of color, we conduct a case study of Denver and show that four common regulatory models concentrate land that permits MMDs in socioeconomically disadvantaged tracts and areas with high proportions of persons of color. Takeaway for practice: Local planners are often caught unprepared for the land use implications of medical marijuana legalization. This outline of common land use regulatory models and a replicable analytical model help practitioners develop ordinances that square with their own communities’ goals, values, and attributes.

A QUality INdex of Parks for Youth (QUINPY): Evaluating urban parks through geographic information systems:

Visiting urban parks regularly can provide significant physical and mental health benefits for children and teenagers, but these benefits are tempered by park quality, amenities, maintenance, and safety. Therefore, planning and public health scholars have developed instruments to measure park quality, but most of these tools require costly and time-consuming field surveys and only a handful focus specifically on youth. We rectify these issues by developing the QUality INdex of Parks for Youth (QUINPY) based on a robust literature review of studies on young people’s park visitation habits and an extensive validation process by academic and professional experts. Importantly, the QUINPY relies on publicly available geospatial data to measure park quality. We then successfully pilot test the QUINPY in Denver and New York City. We believe that park agencies, planning consultants, researchers, and nonprofits aiming to assess park quality will find this tool useful. The QUINPY is particularly promising given the increasing amount of publicly available geospatial data and other recent advancements in geospatial science.

The importance of place in early disaster recovery: a case study of the 2013 Colorado floods

Recovery is an important but understudied phase in the disaster management cycle. Researchers have identified numerous socio-demographic factors that help explain differences in recovery among households, but are less clear on the importance of place, which we define as a households locality and local governance. In this paper, we examine the influence of place on disaster recovery through a study of the 2013 Colorado floods. Our findings are based on data collected from interviews, observation of recovery meetings, and a survey of 96 flood-affected households. We show that place shapes a households disaster recovery by structuring: (1) physical exposure to hazards; (2) which local government has jurisdiction over recovery decisions; (3) local planning culture and its approach to citizen participation; and (4) the strength of social capital networks. Our findings expand the recovery literature and show that place-level variables should be taken into consideration when conceptualizing household recovery and resilience.

Right-sizing shrinking cities: a landscape and design strategy for abandoned properties

Abstract Much popular and academic attention is paid to population deconcentration and economic decline in so-called shrinking cities. In this paper we react upon several theories of urban decline with a novel analysis of abandoned properties in the United States, using foreclosure-driven residential vacancies (FDRVs) as a proxy for abandoned properties. We empirically examine the amount and type of abandoned land in some of the cities hardest hit by the mortgage crisis, and present a relevant landscape and design strategy to show that landscape architects are well positioned to redesign this newly available land. To help develop a systematic set of stages and actions for right-sizing initiatives, we catalogue several examples of current initiatives to address abandonment, paying attention to roadblocks inherent to this landscape and design strategy. This strategy presents a useful model with which designers can tackle the difficult and controversial issue of right-sizing.