The project is based on a mixed-methods approach, which involved discussion with a wide range of stakeholders in the town, from local politicians and community leaders to business owners and managers; street surveys with members of the public at a range of observations sites; and non-participant observation at nine sites, undertaken by 46 members of the general public (aged 16-73 years) over a 12-month period (October 2004 to September 2005). The observations were carried out in three types of public spaces: residential neighbourhoods, green open spaces and town centre spaces, which were considered representative of the town’s public spaces as a whole. The observations were carried out across the day from 7am to 1am. The research method was highly participatory, with the observers also contributing to and informing the data analysis.
\n__________________________________________________________________________________________________
\nPublic spaces allow people to meet on ostensibly neutral ground in planned and unplanned ways, to interact with others within the context of the whole community. These include family relationships (for example, multi-generation family shopping expeditions), cultural groupings (for example, youth groups), local social connections (for example, chance or planned meetings with friends, neighbours and work colleagues) and groups meeting through common interest (for example, walking groups). By facilitating this mixing, public spaces can contribute to the cohesion of communities.
\nPeople like to remain connected with the public life of their villages, towns and cities. This particularly applies to older people, and those who do not have other connections through places of work or education. Socially inclusive public spaces enable people of all ages to access essential services and facilities without physical barriers, safety concerns or transport difficulties in reaching them.
\n
Rather than prohibiting gatherings of young people in public spaces, greater understanding of cultural issues between the generations could reduce feelings of threatening behaviour.
While observation revealed that older people use public spaces at different times to younger people – being more likely to be seen earlier in the day – some are particularly sensitive to the presence of others in public places.
\nThere is a consensus between statutory authorities, town and shopping centre managers and the general public that security is a major consideration in public spaces.
\nUnique and special events, including spontaneous ‘street entertainment’, also grab the attention and help to define places as interesting.
\nFrom interviews, surveys and observation it is clear that spaces acquire reputations (that is, as ‘places’) that may or may not be deserved, but which are persistent and which have an effect on whether and how people use those spaces.
\nPublic signage can also be informative, and the absence of good way-finding signage meant that visitors to the town could be unaware of places of interest in the town centre area, and visitors to the housing estate would have difficulty in locating the local centre.
\nPublic spaces are regarded as democratic because everybody can use them: places that, rhetorically at least, allow ‘community’ to exist and flourish.
\nClaiming social space and being seen in public becomes a way for social groups to legitimate their right to belong in society. Yet because they can be used by everyone, public spaces are frequently considered contested spaces; places where opposition, confrontation, resistance and subversion can be played out over ‘the right to space’ (Mitchell, 1995, 2003).
\nConsequently, the right to ‘be’ not just ‘in public’, but also ‘a part’ of that public is an important way in which different groups can assert their own legitimacy to belong.
\nPlaces have their own identities and histories, which, if known to those occupying them, may have an effect on how they are used. On the other hand, people using public spaces that are unknown to them may experience a range of emotions from curiosity to uncertainty to insecurity, which can also affect behaviour. Consequently, the processes by which ‘individuals’ and ‘groups’ compete for access to, or domination of, public spaces are much more complex than simple issues of public order or design. The ways in which space is socially produced is therefore essential to an understanding of how individuals and groups engage with public space.
\nAntisocial behaviour, however defined, is felt more acutely in urban areas, particularly more deprived urban areas (DETR, 1998; Audit Commission, 2006).
\nThe study drew on Madanipour’s (1999) definition of public space, which includes those areas physically accessible to all, regardless of ownership, where people can enter with few restrictions.
\nThe public spaces chosen for observation in the town included a range of different types of spaces that were felt to represent those commonly found in most towns, including open green spaces; residential neighbourhood spaces; and town centre areas, including central squares and shopping areas.
\nVale Park
\nSeasonality, time of day and the prevailing weather and light conditions affected how people used the park more than in any other place in the study.
\nAside from people just passing through, the most consistent users of the park were the group of street drinkers and homeless and unemployed people who primarily used the benches in the formal garden area, and groups of young people from secondary school age to young adulthood.
\nGreen spaces
\nThe canal towpth
\nThe canal was one of the few places where strangers often interacted with each other as well as with their surroundings. For example, many observers commented that uniquely there, people often said hello to them, or at least acknowledged them with a nod; yet they were never asked what they were doing there – perhaps indicative that the canal is a site for ‘alternative’ or ‘private’ activities. Several observers commented on how people passed each other on the narrow towpath, and specifically whether or not eye contact was made.
\nThese are places where people can spend time without spending money. In contrast to highly regulated commercial town centres, they tend to be lightly managed and permissive of minor misdemeanours and social experimentation. In addition to providing the green ‘lungs’ of urban areas, green spaces can also be places where people can occasionally behave in less formal ways. This means that such places can also have an edge of insecurity for some, and this issue is discussed more fully in Chapter 6.
\nCommercial and civic places: high streets and town squres
\n‘The creation of thriving town centres that provide local people with retail, leisure and other facilities they need is of critical importance to our vision of sustainable communities.... Well-planned towns will attract visitors and investors and can help combat social exclusion’
\nAylesbury town centre
\nOf all the sites, the two town squares and the High Street appeared to be the ones where all sections of the ‘community’ – young and old, people of different ethnicities, cultures and social groups – were often around at the same time, and of these Market Square appeared the most ‘inclusive’ of all.
\nTown centre shopping malls
\nPeople are coming from work. Some have work ID cards with photos hanging round their necks.
\nTwo messages come over the system. The first is to tell us that [the shopping centre] is open for shopping on Sundays – the second to tell us that the centre will be closing in 15 minutes – quite a contrast of messages in a way.
\nLeisure use (for casual shopping, browsing and meeting friends) took over at other times, particularly on Sundays), when family groups appeared to be taking a leisurely stroll around the centres as they ‘shopped’.
\nThe shopping centres were also the most highly regulated places in the town, with security guards in the shopping malls, and bouncers outside particular venues at night; this aspect is discussed in Chapter 7.
\nResidential areas and neighbourhood centres
\nSmall parades of out-of-town shops and amenities often provide a physical focal point for neighbourhoods, sometimes including a local meeting place, whether a pub, café, community centre, leisure centre or post office. The relationships between adjacent neighbourhoods are sometimes played out in these places, often involving groups of young people in conflicts or demonstrations of ‘ownership’ and territoriality. The two neighbourhood centres in this study contrast in physical design and in the social and economic demographics of the local populations they serve. However, in addition to housing, they both offer shops, catering and social amenities, with central spaces based around ‘squares’.
\nWalton Court
\nA large, mainly male group of approx 8 is congregated outside the video store and we can hear laughing and shouting. A smaller group of 6 (2 teenage girls and
4 teenage boys) are chatting by the Indian takeaway.
Two young girls are outside the café chatting. An older couple are walking their granddaughter, a man and woman are chatting outside the fish and chip shop.
\nAs we left the area 3 muscley tight topped males, very dark – maybe mixed race, were chatting up a petite blonde haired white girl, it made her look very vulnerable but confident.
\nSigns forbidding games and skateboarding were routinely ignored by young people, but for most of the time this did not seem to bother other users. Occasionally, hectic and rowdy games forced other people to alter their routes to keep out of the way.
\nThe groups tended to comprise boys and girls or young men and women of roughly similar ages. At times (usually in the evenings) these groups could become very large with up to 20 or more people. In these cases, this was interpreted as threatening and put off some adults from coming into the shopping area.
\nSome of the older young people thought that any trouble usually involved people from other places who came into the area ‘looking for trouble’, shoplifting and creating graffiti, which they couldn’t easily do closer to their own homes.These local young people said that they felt safe in this area but not in the adjacent neighbourhoods, where different ‘gangs’ of young people controlled public spaces located there.
\nFaiford Leys
\nI can hear children playing but not sure where they are, possibly hidden by bushes some distance away.
\nWith the exception of ‘officially’ organised events that brought people out of doors, such as the ‘Fair in the Square’ (summer 2005), the public areas of Fairford Leys tended to be almost devoid of human activity for much of the time.
\nCouples with young children often strolled through the main square, but the multi- generation families observed in the town centre were not seen here. There appeared to be little interchange between these family groups, and indeed little interaction in general except for mothers talking together outside the nursery.
\nDespite one observer’s comments (above) litter was an issue that united the residents. The main square had not been provided with litter bins, and as a result the shopkeepers ended up acting as ‘litter monitors’.
\n...the needs of children and young people are not universally accepted as one of the defining parameters in the design of public space.
\nIn public spaces, small children can learn about social behaviour by observing how strangers look and behave, how their carers interact with strangers, and how to behave themselves in public. Policy initiatives to foster integrated public spaces need to include the needs of families and small children so that they can be included in the public life of the town.
\nOlder children (lower secondary school ages: aged around 11-15 years) and young people (aged around 16-19 years) were more likely than adults to gather in large groups in public spaces in all the locations and across a wide range of times, but especially out of school hours and during holidays.
\nGirls and younger boys used the bandstand to talk, eat, drink and smoke. This could be understood as a form of territorial behaviour within an informal location where a group develops ownership, feels secure and is enabled to maintain a degree of privacy (Altman, 1975).
\nIt appears that practices of sociability – of chatting and hanging out with members of a peer group, impressing others (for example through skateboard skills, or perhaps smoking and drinking) – were carried out in particular spaces at specific times. In this respect, claiming particular spaces and times of the day or night is part of the process by which young people find their own ‘place’ in the world.Many young people need spaces to be able to gather together and practise their social skills within their peer groups on neutral ground. For these young people the public spaces around neighbourhood centres (that are accessible, dry, sheltered and, perhaps crucially, well lit and perceived to be relatively secure at night) or the park (where, as discussed below, occupants may seldom come under the surveillant gaze of adults or security personnel), provided refuge.
\nRather than prohibiting gatherings of young people in public places, the emphasis should be on informing people about social interactions in public. For example, older people and other adults could be put in the picture about relevant aspects of youth culture, to help to remove unnecessary fear and perhaps to identify real causes for concern; while young people could learn why their presence can upset and worry older people, and think about how to interact in a non-threatening manner, for example through positioning and the use of body language.
\nBut the findings clearly demonstrate that many older people are unwilling or unable to take full advantage of public spaces...Friars Square also offered places where older people could sit indoors, protected from the elements, in good lighting, and feeling secure in the presence of the security personnel.
Older people are actively discouraged from fully using public places, especially after dark, by inadequate facilities and transport, security concerns and a general lack of interesting activities or venues around public places geared for their preferences. Their involvement with an extended or ’24-hour’ economy will require positive initiatives by both local authorities and local businesses.
\nBoth older and younger people frequently interacted with people of similar ages (for example meeting and greeting), but apart from family groups and older people with young children (presumed by observers generally to be grandchildren), there were few occasions when real interaction was seen between older people and teenagers/young adults. There were some examples of older people being helped up after a stumble or having a door held open, but generally where older and younger people were in the same place at the same time they tended to ignore or avoid each other. They would usually choose not to sit alongside each other if other seating was available.
\nHowever, the gathering of young people, and other marginalised groups, in different public spaces is not just the result of forced dispersal. Certain areas also offered particular attractions for different groups, to meet friends, or to feel safe or undisturbed by security or police.
\nSpatial regulation was observed in different ways across the town, ranging from self- regulation where individuals avoided eye contact with strangers in Market Square or where individuals and small groups positioned themselves on specific benches in the town centre to imposed regulation where groups were expelled from one site to another (drinkers from Kingsbury to Vale Park and then from Vale Park).
\nOverall, the park is a socially segregated space where different groups rarely mix...While much of this segregation can be defined by activity – such as skating, or children’s play – different spaces of the park also provided opportunity for different groups to meet together and in some ways construct their own identities. On the whole, young people in the park appeared to do very little other than ‘hang around’ or skate.
\nThis segregation may be interpreted as attempts to avoid direct intergroup conflict, particularly in the light of previous known confrontations. The different age/ethnic groups appeared to be ignoring one another for much of the time, with little indication of social interaction. They appeared to be very conscious of one another’s presence and actively accommodating each other’s habits.
\nThe division between the two sets of benches appeared even more noticeable on Saturdays, with younger people usually tending to cluster around the benches outside the fast food outlet regardless of whether or not they were eating food from there.
\nSelf-segregation is one of the means by which people manage social contact in public places to reflect their own preferences on engaging with others and the need for personal space. Provided that public spaces are allowed to be as inclusive as possible, allowing people to be alongside others who they recognise as being similar to or different from them, self-segregation can be perhaps viewed as a process of identity creation, and innate human behaviour, rather than as a challenge to community development.
\nThe ‘publicness’ of public places is conditional and contingent. Observations have shown that however ‘public’ a place may be, whether or not it is accessible to you depends to a large extent on who you are – your age, status, and sometimes gender; and the time of day. Time of day matters because of who else may or may not be around; what services will be available to you; whether you can get home by bus. Older people and children are particularly likely to feel marginalised or excluded at particular times of day for these reasons.
\n\n
The CABE Space manifesto states that ‘Public spaces are the ‘glue’ that holds society together, the places where we meet different people, share experiences, and learn to trust one another’ (CABE, 2004b, p 5). In addition to purposefully using public places (for shopping, leisure and so on) and also to use them as places to encounter other (familiar and unfamiliar) people and events, people also use public spaces to maintain their own presence as a part of the social entity that is the town or the neighbourhood.
\nConclusion
\nObservations have shown that however ‘public’ a place may be, whether or not it is accessible to you depends to a large extent on who you are – your age, status, and sometimes gender; and the time of day. Time of day matters because of who else may or may not be around; what services will be available to you; whether you can get home by bus. Older people and children are particularly likely to feel marginalised or excluded at particular times of day for these reasons.
\nThe public spaces of a town may both reflect and influence how people feel about the place where they live, and in this study of Aylesbury the persistence and influence of reputation was an important aspect of place identity.
\n‘A disadvantage is that you have preconceptions about a place. My initial reaction to Walton Court was a poor one, a gut reaction, and I had a negative feeling about observing there, but when we got there it was fine.’
\nthis study suggests that while the presence or expectation of large groups of older teenagers and young adults in the evenings still presented a problem and a deterrent for many people, for most of the daytime local people were confident about using these spaces and they could sustain a sense of community.
\nTo combat persistent bad reputations, positive publicity is also needed to encourage more upbeat public expectations and responses to particular places.
\nThere is an essential tension in public spaces between the need to ‘live and let live’, and the need to manage and regulate. This research suggests that successful management needs to involve a constant negotiation between the extremes of over- regulation and laissez-faire approaches. Public education, information and involvement are key to this process.
\nClear and informative signage needs to be given due prominence as part of the accessibility of public places to help users, without creating excess street clutter.
\nEncouraging a sense of community by engaging people in activities takes place both in town centres and in local neighbourhoods. Interviews revealed that people enjoyed town centre activities as both sources of engagement and stimulation (such as ‘European’ market days, children’s entertainers and public concerts) and sources of reassurance where attachment to place could be recognised through landmarks, with historic buildings and statues giving a sense of history and continuity.
\nHowever, while people deliberately attended the Vale Park event; activities in Market Square appeared to attract people who were already in the vicinity.
\nFinally, as noted at the beginning of this section, the management of community activities is also encouraged as a part of neighbourhood life.
\nWhile some community activities need to be managed centrally around points of interest, other activities may benefit from being part of ‘natural’ space where people can find their own things to do.
\nThe study suggests that while social interactions in public spaces can appear to be limited, they involve an underlying orderliness by which people avoid conflict and sometimes feel a sense of community.
\nPeople need to be encouraged to enjoy public spaces so that they can become less intimidated by them and add to the vibrancy and variety that is the lifeblood of towns.
\nBringing different communities togehter...
\nThe provision of difference (through, for example, street entertainment), together with appropriate facilities (through the thoughtful positioning of benches and covered seating areas and access to toilets) may be a much more inexpensive way of creating good public spaces than large-scale redevelopment projects.
\nGoing when, and where, the everyday users of public spaces can be found will locate a myriad of different individuals willing and able to discuss, debate and explain how best to produce a collectively inclusive public domain.
\nEncouraging people to become ‘used to’ the presence of difference may be a much more effective approach to the management of public space than legislation and exclusions.
\nNonetheless, being able to be seen in public – and to be able to see different types of social groups – may go some way to enabling everyone, and children and young people in particular, to observe difference, and thereby perhaps, promote tolerance for social diversity.
\nThis research suggests that people enjoy going into public spaces and experiencing for themselves the social differences that they offer.
\nYet this ‘everyday’ quality can mean that small, cost-effective improvements can be made to enhance public spaces simply by breaking up monotony – for example by providing entertainment and ‘attractions’. These need not be expensive tokens of high culture, but can include street musicians, market stalls or something ‘different’ to look at.
\nThe central story of this research is the importance people attach to the wider community and the creation of ‘places to be’ – whether alone, as couples, passers-by or as family or friendship groups at all stages of the life course. The interaction of ‘time’, ‘space’ and ‘season’ is central to this picture, leading to patterns of segregation and integration as people seek engagement, activity, communality, tranquility and privacy within the public domain.
\nThe Open University Library's e-prints Archive [http://libeprints.open.ac.uk/perl/oai2] (United Kingdom) ER
", "tags": [], "relations": {}, "dateAdded": "2012-09-10T14:23:00Z", "dateModified": "2012-09-10T14:23:00Z" } }, { "key": "TGB8AIWE", "version": 1, "library": { "type": "group", "id": 87877, "name": "softec", "links": { "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/groups/softec", "type": "text/html" } } }, "links": { "self": { "href": "https://api.zotero.org/groups/87877/items/TGB8AIWE", "type": "application/json" }, "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/groups/softec/items/TGB8AIWE", "type": "text/html" } }, "meta": { "createdByUser": { "id": 222337, "username": "nemanja", "name": "", "links": { "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/nemanja", "type": "text/html" } } }, "creatorSummary": "Nielsen et al.", "numChildren": 0 }, "data": { "key": "TGB8AIWE", "version": 1, "itemType": "conferencePaper", "title": "How to make friends? Characteristics of offline communities affecting the impact of social network sites on intra-community cohesion.", "creators": [ { "creatorType": "author", "firstName": "Torben", "lastName": "Nielsen" }, { "creatorType": "author", "firstName": "Jo", "lastName": "Person" }, { "creatorType": "author", "firstName": "Bram", "lastName": "Lievens" } ], "abstractNote": "", "proceedingsTitle": "", "conferenceName": "Prato Community CIRN Conference 2009: Empowering communities: learning from community informatics practice", "publisher": "", "place": "Prato, Italy", "date": "", "eventPlace": "", "volume": "", "issue": "", "numberOfVolumes": "", "pages": "", "series": "", "seriesNumber": "", "DOI": "", "ISBN": "", "citationKey": "", "url": "", "accessDate": "", "ISSN": "", "archive": "", "archiveLocation": "", "shortTitle": "", "language": "", "libraryCatalog": "", "callNumber": "", "rights": "", "extra": "", "tags": [], "collections": [], "relations": {}, "dateAdded": "2012-09-10T14:21:13Z", "dateModified": "2012-09-10T14:21:13Z" } }, { "key": "JX6VS3CC", "version": 1, "library": { "type": "group", "id": 87877, "name": "softec", "links": { "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/groups/softec", "type": "text/html" } } }, "links": { "self": { "href": "https://api.zotero.org/groups/87877/items/JX6VS3CC", "type": "application/json" }, "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/groups/softec/items/JX6VS3CC", "type": "text/html" } }, "meta": { "createdByUser": { "id": 222337, "username": "nemanja", "name": "", "links": { "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/nemanja", "type": "text/html" } } }, "numChildren": 0 }, "data": { "key": "JX6VS3CC", "version": 1, "itemType": "webpage", "title": "Keith N. Hampton at the School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University", "creators": [], "abstractNote": "", "websiteTitle": "", "websiteType": "", "date": "", "publisher": "", "place": "", "DOI": "", "citationKey": "", "url": "http://www.mysocialnetwork.net/", "accessDate": "2012-09-10T14:12:49Z", "shortTitle": "", "language": "", "rights": "", "extra": "", "tags": [], "collections": [], "relations": {}, "dateAdded": "2012-09-10T14:12:49Z", "dateModified": "2012-09-10T14:12:49Z" } } ]