Organising Categories
Art
This category contains key concepts related to the production and occurrence of art in public space.
Key Concepts: Monuments, Performances, Public art
Design
The organizing category ‘design’ contains research exploring how the design of public space can have an impact on cultural, social, economic, and political outcomes. The category also includes the process of design, that is the specification of particular forms and places through various tools and strategies.
Key Concepts: Aesthetics [Remove me], Affordance, Articulation of space, Homogenization, Mobility, Prospect and refuge [Remove me], Public exposure, Safety [Remove me], Transformation of public space
Economics
The organizing category ‘economics’ examines public space as a driver of urban economies, and examines the local economic impacts of public spaces (such as on surrounding property values). Also considered under this category are the economic mechanisms for funding public space construction and maintenance as well as the economic policies that lead to the privatization of public spaces and the (often related) displacement of informal economic activities by larger and more formal ones.
Key Concepts: Entrepreneurship, Investment structures, Privatization, Real estate values, Tourism
Environment
This category encompasses research focused on how public space impacts ecology and natural resources or vice versa. This includes how natural ecosystems function at different scales, from local hydrology, ecology, and micro-climates, to regional ecosystem management, resource consumption “footprints,” and emissions impacts from water pollution, air pollution, and climate change.
Key Concepts: Climate change adaptation, Urban agriculture
Governance and management
This organizing category is about the governance of public space including both formal and informal actions of public and private institutions in regulation, management, maintenance, and control.
Key Concepts: Community governance, Private governance, Public governance, Securitization
History
This category covers research investigating the role of history in shaping public spaces and the development of content, form, and meaning of public spaces throughout time.
Key Concepts: Evolution of public space, Heritage and cultural preservation, Historic preservation, Historical and emerging typologies [Remove me]
Human Experience
The organizing category ‘human experience’ contains research exploring human emotions, perceptions, physical comfort, meaning, and cognition in public space. This category also includes post-occupancy evaluations of public space.
Key Concepts: Biophilia, Cognition and behavior [Remove me], Discovery and learning, Perception and behavior, Perceptions of safety, Rhythm and temporality
Politics
This organizing category deals with how democratic expressions, contestations, and power dynamics shape society in a given historical moment within the public realm.
Key Concepts: Civic engagement, Communication and mediation [Remove me], Democratic practices [Remove me], Diversity, conflict and negotiation [Remove me], Management and control [Remove me], Representation [Remove me], Resistance and contestation, Social equity
Social Interaction
Research in this category articulates the role of public space as an arena for social interaction. As a complex gathering place, public space allows for the co-presence of different and sometimes contesting groups with varying power relationships and informal territorial claims. Through use and social interaction, people “co-produce,” activate, and give meaning to public space.
Key Concepts: Co-presence [Remove me], Conflicts in space, Digital technologies, Performativity [Remove me], Place and identity, Recognition of cultural difference [Remove me], Sociability and interaction, Social construction of public space, Temporal patterns [Remove me], Third places, Triangulation [Remove me], Visibility and concealment [Remove me]
Social Relations
Research in this organizing category explores the ways in which public space is situated in a broader context of social structures, social institutions, and social processes, with implications for the meaning, function, and impact of public space in society.
Key Concepts: Disorder, Gentrification, Globalization and homogenization [Remove me], Inclusion and exclusion, Place and identity [Remove me], Privatization [Remove me], Sense of community, Social capital, Social networks
Urban Form
The organizing category ‘urban form’ contains research exploring the urban form that makes up the connective framework for private and public spaces in the city. In this context, public space can be understood as both the generator of urban form (e.g. through initial patterns of streets and squares) and as a result of urban form (e.g. architecture and physical construction).
Key Concepts: Scale of urban form, Spatial networks and systems, Streets as public spaces, Urban morphology
Well-being
This organizing category contains research examining physical and social attributes of public spaces in relation to physical and psychological health outcomes.
Key Concepts: Active lifestyle, Aesthetic benefits, Health benefits [Remove me], Restorative activities, Thermal comfort, Walkability [Remove me]
Key Concepts
Active lifestyle
Research categorized under ‘active lifestyle’ investigates the relationship between public spaces and the benefits of activities such as walking, running, cycling, or sports. This includes studies investigating the ability of the built environment to improve overall health and wellness.
Organizing Category: Well-being
Aesthetic benefits
Research related to this key concept explores the ability of aesthetic characteristics of public space to promote well-being, health benefits, and enjoyment.
Organizing Category: Well-being
Affordance
Affordance as a concept relates to studies on the perceived functional significance of an object, event, or place for an individual, and the resulting understanding of how public spaces can provide opportunities for people to engage with their environment for different intentional purposes. For example, seating can be designed in such a way that it becomes manipulated by users, or other objects can become improvised seating.
Organizing Category: Design
Civic engagement
The concept ‘civic engagement’ refers to research about the role of public space in people’s participation in local public matters. This can include activities such as public meetings, exchanging information and leaflets, or other forms of engagement.
Organizing Category: Politics
Climate change adaptation
This key concept relates to the changes to policies, infrastructures, and social attitudes necessary to prepare for and respond to the consequences of climate change (e.g. stormwater management, sustainable transportation, or reducing the urban heat island effect).
Organizing Category: Environment
Conflicts in space
This key concept relates to research about how public space can harbor, facilitate or mitigate conflict between dissimilar groups and individuals. Expressions of conflict can take on visible forms, e.g., physical or verbal altercations, or quiet forms of social friction such as general discontent towards an event, a certain behavior or changes in public space.
Organizing Category: Social Interaction
Digital technologies
The key concept ‘digital technologies’ investigates how digital technology affects the social life, interactions, and connectivity between users in, and in relation to, public space.
Organizing Category: Social Interaction
Disorder
The concept ‘disorder’ refers to the effects of social and physical incivilities in public space, e.g., drinking in the street, litter, graffiti, or dilapidated buildings.
Organizing Category: Social Relations
Evolution of public space
This key concept contains research concerning changes to the environment and functions of public spaces over prolonged periods of time or even eras. Examples of spaces that have undergone such evolution may include urban parks (such as Bryant Park in NYC), plazas (such as Parque Central in Costa Rica), thoroughfares (like Rome’s Via Condotti), or the repurposing of a waterfront (like London’s Docklands).
Organizing Category: History
Gentrification
Studies categorized under ‘gentrification’ look into those neighborhood transformation processes that often include consequences such as displacement, exclusion, social inequality and social conflict. Public space can both contribute to and be affected by these processes.
Organizing Category: Social Relations
Heritage and cultural preservation
The key concept ‘heritage and cultural preservation’ contains research concerning the preservation of cultural characteristics that have meaning for how a place is experienced and perceived. These characteristics have to do with symbolic social experiences rather than a place's physical features. Examples include traditional events, the diversity of groups that use a public space, or typical activities that take place there.
Organizing Category: History
Historic preservation
Research related to the key concept ‘historic preservation’ refers to the preservation of built, physical and material environments considered part of a place’s historic heritage. This may include research on the impact of preservation, conservation, or adaptive reuse of buildings and environments on public spaces or vice versa.
Organizing Category: History
Inclusion and exclusion
The key concept ‘inclusion and exclusion’ relates to how public space can construct or dismantle social and physical barriers between diverse groups. Examples include the benefits of co-presence and multiculturalism, or the ability for some groups to dominate or exclude others.
Organizing Category: Social Relations
Monuments
This key concept concerns research about the role and perception of monuments in public spaces. Such monuments can include statues, art pieces, or structures built for the purpose of commemorating a person, people or event.
Organizing Category: Art
Performances
‘Performances’ as a key concept relates to research studying the meaning and impact of formal and informal public displays, typically involving music, acting, dancing, or other physical movement.
Organizing Category: Art
Place and identity
This key concept refers to the generation, perpetuation, and expression of individual or cultural identities within public space. This might include the experience, use, and understanding of public space mediated by socially constructed ideas of race and gender.
Organizing Category: Social Interaction
Public art
Research related to the concept of ‘public art’ investigates the impact and meaning of art located in public space, both permanent and temporary, as well as sanctioned and unsanctioned. Examples can include graffiti, guerilla art projects, murals, or installations.
Organizing Category: Art
Resistance and contestation
The key concept ‘resistance and contestation’ contains research studying the role of public space vis-a-vis social movements, protests, and other forms of resistance.
Organizing Category: Politics
Restorative activities
The key concept ‘restorative activities’ focuses on the relation between features of public space and activities that involve emotional restoration, such as rest, recreation, entertainment, and play.
Organizing Category: Well-being
Sense of community
The concept ‘sense of community’ relates to studies of individuals’ feelings of connectedness to their community and neighbors, often with the aim to understand how collective action and increased social cohesion can be achieved.
Organizing Category: Social Relations
Sociability and interaction
This key concept contains research concerning how public space can act as an arena for human interaction and social behavior, and how it can influence social dynamics.
Organizing Category: Social Interaction
Social capital
This key concept refers to how public space can contribute to or diminish social capital, the realized or potential social resources that result from reciprocity and trust in social networks.
Organizing Category: Social Relations
Social construction of public space
Research labelled under ‘social construction of public space’ is concerned with the structure and meaning given to public space through informal social processes and collective understanding of space.
Organizing Category: Social Interaction
Social equity
‘Social equity’ as a key concept refers to the ways in which public space can contribute to principles of social equity and democracy. Examples of social equity relate to different forms of unbiased and fair access and participation in public life.
Organizing Category: Politics
Social networks
Studies related to ‘social networks’ explore the role of public spaces in supporting the web of relationships between people, segregating connections into a hierarchy of close personal relationships (“strong ties”) and more secondary acquaintanceships (“weak ties”).
Organizing Category: Social Relations
Thermal comfort
The key concept ‘thermal comfort’ contains research on how public space can afford comfort from the hot or cold, depending on the time of the year. Such qualities can include shading, shelters, warming devices, etc.
Organizing Category: Well-being
Third places
Research categorized as related to ‘third places’ studies the significance of social spaces (not home or work—first and second places) where people can regularly visit and interact with friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. Examples may include a cafe, church, or bookstore.
Organizing Category: Social Interaction
Urban agriculture
This key concept focuses on research about public spaces used for (typically) small scale farming operations. Examples of such spaces include community gardens, rooftop gardens, and other adaptations to the urban environment for growing food.
Organizing Category: Environment
Methods
3D / Digital / Datasets
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: 3D Spatial Analysis, Digital Mapping, GIS, GIS data, GIS tools, survey using interactive GIS features, or virtual environment experiences.
Archival / Historical
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: A combination of narrative historiography, archival research, archives, census data, crime statistics, documentary analysis, historical archives, historical document analysis, historical research, media review, rhetorical analysis of media reports, Twitter topic, and web searches.
Case Study
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: case studies to test hypotheses or claims, case studies with before-and-after impact assessment, comparative analysis, comparative case studies, ethnographic case studies, case studies from different cultures, and qualitative case studies.
Content analysis
This methodology involves the systematic coding of qualitative data into quantitative data (for example, 1-10 rankings et al.), and can be used to analyze textual documents, e.g. interview transcriptions or archived newspaper articles, as well as pictures, audio, or video.
Field Observations
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: direct observation, empirical observation, ethnographic field work, ethnographic research methods such as participant observation, non-participant observation, observations of human activity at each place, physical observations, structured field observation, systematic observations, and walk-alongs.
Interviews
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: attending local council, ethnographic interviews, expert panel evaluations, focus groups, meetings, in-depth interviews, interviews (with photography), open-ended interviews, semi-formal meetings, semi-structured interviews, and structured interviews.
Meta-analysis
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: literature review, literature survey, meta research, survey of field research or survey of previous field research.
Participant Observation
This category of methods is used for research carried out with participant observation, that is, observation and description of participant activity and characteristics.
Participatory Research
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: Participatory Action Research (PAR) or participatory analysis.
Photo / Video / Sensor
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: field research using EEG monitors, measurements of meteorological variables, live recording, micrometeorological measurements, photo-elicitation, photographic approach combined with supplementary methodological tools, photography, physiological equivalent temperature, video recordings, or web-based cameras.
Spatial Methods
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: behavior mapping, detailed mapping, drawings, environmental inventories, geospatial analysis, mental maps, site analysis, spatial analysis, spatial mapping, spatial observation, visual quality assessment, visual surveys, walk by observations, walkability environmental inventories, and walkability inventories.
Survey
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: A Questionnaire Survey Of Immigrant, Data From Surveys, Field Surveys, Mail Survey, Online Survey, Questionnaire, Questionnaires, Social Surveys, Survey, Survey Based On Slide Images, Survey Based On Video Simulation Of Streetscape, Survey Research, Survey Responses From Neighborhood Walks, Survey With Images, Surveying or Surveys.
Theoretical (Delete me)
This category of methods is used for research carried out with any or several of the following methods: theoretical analysis, theoretical analysis of available images, theoretical analysis of case studies, theoretical analysis of technology platforms, theoretical case studies or theoretical inquiry.
Disciplines
Anthropology
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Archaeology
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Architecture
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Communication
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Economics
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Education
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Environmental Psychology
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Geography
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Health
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History
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Landscape Architecture
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Law
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Political science
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Psychology
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Social Psychology
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Sociology
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Theology
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Urban Design
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Urban Planning
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Activities
Crime and Aggression
People acting in ways considrered illegal, threatening, obtrusive, violent, or the like.
Demonstrating/Protesting
Includes, but not limited to sit-ins, marches, rallies or any other democratic activity.
Digital Device Engagement
Includes active use of phones, laptops or any other digital device.
Economic Transactions
Includes any form of purchasing or exchange of goods (eg. selling food, markets)
Gathering/Socializing
People talking face-to-face with others in close proximity, usually in small or larger groups; can include outdoor classes or other organized event.
Performance/Cultural Expression
Includes any action that relates to or constitutes a performance-like activity (eg. dance, music) or other form of expression (eg. playing an instrument, painting/drawing)
Play/Passive Recreation
Includes, but not limted to observing, physical affection, reading, youth play (eg. playground, playing tag etc.) or anyone engagend in games (eg. chess) or any form of play that is not considered a sport.
Recreating/Exercising
Includes running/jogging, calisthenics skateboarding, rollerblading, cycling, sports, or any other non-motorized movement activity.
Sitting/Relaxing
Includes people simply sitting and potentially people watching, lying down or reclining, sleeping/napping, sunning, waiting, or any other activity where the body is at deliberate rest.
Walking or Rolling
People walking or using a wheelchair (or other aid device) alone or with others.
Working
Labor performed in the puplic space for the functioning of the public space, eg. for the purpose of maintenance, policing, etc.
Physical Types
Alleys
Small, narrow streets behind buildings or groups or buildings or between blocks. Typically for slower moving traffic or rear access to buildings.
Cafés/Restaurants
Any food service place that has seating or space that exists directly in a public realm, ie. sidewalk cafes, restaurants in parks with outdoor-seating, etc. Does not include mobile food vendors or carts. This category only considers those cafe/restaurant spaces that are outdoors and part of a public space realm, ie. sidewalk cafes, restaurants in parks with outdoor-seating, etc. This category may be combined with ‘markets’ later to capture any space that involves a market exchange of goods.
Markets
Any outdoor public space that houses economic exchanges or good/services.
Memorials/Monuments
Public sites with official or unofficial memorials or other commemorative, celebratory dedicative, or the like type of feature. Includes, but not limited to things like statues, roadside memorials, pieces of art, plaques, etc.
Parking Lots
Spaces once or currently dedicated to the parking of motorized vehicles that has been repurposed for pedestrian public use.
Parks/Gardens
Any public green space for use by pedestrians; uses include but are not limited to recreating, walking, gardening, picnicking etc.
Playgrounds/Sports Grounds
Spaces with designed and dedicated play structures intended for youth or areas intended for organized sports play (ie. soccer field, baseball diamond etc).
Sidewalks
Space for pedestrian movement.
Squares
Any open air urban space for use predominantly by pedestrians as opposed to motorized vehicles; may also be referred to as piazza, plaza, or town green among others.
Streets
Space for motorized transportation and/or pedestrian movement.
Transportation Hubs
Places where pedestrians access one or more modes of public transportation.
Waterfront
Any space intended for pedestrian public use adjacent to a body of water.
Other
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