The Prison of “Public Space”

Public space is the age’s master signifier, a loose and elastic notion variously deployed to defend (or attack) architecture, to decry (or celebrate) civic squares, to promote (or denounce) graffiti artists, skateboarders, jaywalkers, parkour aficionados, pie-in-the-face guerrillas, underground capture-the-flag enthusiasts, flash-mob surveillance busters and other grid-resistant everyday anarchists. It is the unit of choice when it comes to understanding pollution predicting political futures, thinking about citizenship, lauding creativity and worrying about food, water or the environment. It is either rife with corporate creep and visual pollution, or made bleak by intrusive surveillance technology, or both. It is a site of suspicion, stimulation and transaction all at once. For some, it is the basis of public discourse itself, the hardware on which we run reason’s software. Simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, it is political air.

Given the seeming...