GEOG 263 - The End of Public Space? Searching for the Inclusive City

This course investigates the ways that public spaces in cities function in theory and in practice to support democratic life. Our investigation will critically assess geographer Don Mitchell’s provocative claim that we may be seeing “the end of public space.” Privatization trends in urban development (including “hostile design”) and a narrowing scope of who qualifies as part of “the public” has certainly born out this claim. At the same time, there’s also a renewed interest among citizens and urbanists alike in the importance of public space as well as grassroots and professional efforts to re-claim and re-program open space for public purposes and use digital technologies to create new types of space to support public engagement. These tensions prompt questions about how to design socially inclusive public spaces. Such questions are at the heart of this course. Toward this aim, the course examines theoretical and philosophical perspectives regarding the ways in which the design and use of public spaces are thought to support democratic citizenship and build inclusive cities. We will also learn about the social and political institutions that govern the decisions affecting how public spaces are created and managed in a variety of contexts. Our consideration of the “end of public space” thesis will draw extensively on students’ field work in the Twin Cities and the course will take several field trips to public spaces in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Students will learn and practice field methods crucial to the study of public spaces. Using frameworks and methods learned in the class, students will complete an independent field study project of a particular public space in the Twin Cities. This will entail routine visits to off-campus locations for several weeks in order to observe and study the use and design of public space. Individual work will be incorporated into A Field Guide to Public Spaces, https://publicspaces.guide, a digital platform for public scholarship concerning public space. Collectively, the projects will inform our critical examination of the claim that in cities today, we are witnessing the end of public space. Fieldwork is required. Offered occasionally. (4 Credits)