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Using a narrative methodology involving 216 older people in six urban aging environments in the Netherlands, we examined how they use and experience (semi-)public spaces as spaces of encounter, and the meanings they derive from using and experiencing these spaces. The research shows that, first, older people prefer commercial spaces like shopping malls to planned and designed activity spaces in care homes or neighborhood centers. Second, older people struggle with the transformations that have taken place in urban social life since they were young adults. Third, especially frail older people derive meaning from a more passive experience of urban social life, in an observer role. The findings allow us to contribute to ongoing debates on the shifting boundaries between public and private space, and the moral implications of these shifting boundaries from the perspective of a diverse group of older users.

This paper plots the recent changes in the uses of public space in Hanoi, Vietnam. It is argued that the economic and social changes in contemporary Vietnam have paved the way for a dramatic transformation in the ways in which streets, pavements and markets are experienced and imagined by the populace. The efflorescence of individual mobility, street-trading and public crowding around certain popular events has led to the emergence of a distinct public sphere, one which is not immune from state control and censure but which is a flagrant rebuttal of the state's appeal. The immediate struggles over space herald a new discursive arena for the contest over Vietnamese national imagery as represented in cultural heritage and public space, memorials and state-controlled events which the public are rapidly deserting. The paper concludes by suggesting that the everyday cultural practices that have created a bustling streetlife in urban Vietnam will inevitably provide the vitality and spectacle for the destabilisation of state control in a struggle for meanings in public space.

This article examines interstices in the urban fabric using the example of two urban leftover spaces in Paris. The article first analyzes the institutional mode of treating these spaces, which explains the ‘framing’ of the interstice as a temporary functionless space. It shows how interstices are not only institutionally created and controlled, as opposed to free, but also find a functional place as a temporary margin of maneuver in a process of decay, recycling and renewal enforced by landlords, the police and maintenance teams. Second, the article examines the improvised modes of action developed by diverse people in order to use the interstice. The article looks at what happens in the gaps of urban planning, when activities find a place in the interstice not in order to transform it, and bring it back into the realm of urban places, but to take advantage of its ‘in-between’ position in the city. In practice, such activities are led by individuals who have to be ‘just passing’, because the frame (Goffman, 1974) built by landlords and their agents prevents them from taking place. Under some conditions, ‘just passing’ can give way to another type of involvement described as ‘out of frame’, which in this case, allows a group of homeless people to settle in the interstice for a more durable period of time despite heavy surveillance.

This paper aims to produce new insights into the complex relationship between the spatial and social dimensions of ethnic segregation in the public space of the walled city of Nicosia. The ethnic demographic of Cyprus is subject to a changing population dynamic by net in-migration, from both the EU and Third World countries, which is mainly found in the city centres. The mechanisms involved in the ways Cypriots and ethnic minorities use the public space of the city centre and the interface (or lack of it) between them lies at the heart of this paper. Building on existing research, the study focuses on a ring of public spaces which, despite their small size and the absence of any clearly defined boundaries, form a physically continuous spatial entity that is distinctly divided among different users. An attempt to account for the observed phenomenon is facilitated by the discussion of a number of relevant topics such as: the city centre as an edge condition; the entrance of users into the space through injection versus infiltration; the relationship between history and spatial adjacency; and the emergence of social phenomena from the attempts of individuals to 'make-do'.

This study attempts to understand the public evaluation towards elements that exist within the temporal dynamics of the cities. In particular the study explores the extent to which street vendors in Jakarta are evaluated as ‘out of place’ elements at day time and night time. The findings suggest that the users’ evaluation of street vendors as ‘out of place’ change from day time to night time. The change of users’ evaluation also varies across different urban places. In particular the study suggests that the presence of street vendors seems to be less unacceptable (out of place) at night time. Such knowledge regarding the dynamic of ‘out of place’ evaluation becomes important in making the decision about temporary urban elements in the city.

This article examines cultural practices and social life in urban public spaces of postreform China, focusing on the everyday leisure, entertainment, and cultural activities spontaneously organized by grassroots residents or groups. It examines performativity in constituting cultural meanings, reproducing everyday identities, and building up mutual engagements, and unravels the ways in which ordinary people devote resources, labor, and energy to keep alive individual or collective identities. Performances of cultural identities in public spaces entail improvised and temporary social relations which emerge from the immediate contexts of mundane spatial practices. Empirical analyses of public performativity in Guangzhou identify three scenarios, namely, the performativity of public teaching, public shows and performances, and the performative displays of cultural difference between carnivalesque dancing and “high-end culture” in public leisure.

Recent case studies of receiving communities have established that translocal immigrants are transforming their neighbourhoods, producing spaces of identity. While these studies have focused on the reshaping of local power dynamics, less attention has been given to the spaces, themselves, and the qualities that influence identity. This study utilises place identity literature, from environmental psychology, to explore the remaking of MacArthur Park, a public space at the centre of a Mexican and Central American immigrant community in Los Angeles, California. We find that new ‘place identities’ are influenced by the specific physical, social, and cultural elements of the park, as study participants attempt to maintain identities influenced by important places in their sending communities. The result is a park that has emotional significance for participants, significance that leads to agency – everyday and political practices – to protect the park, sometimes in the face of immense challenges.

This paper presents a comparative case study of two northern suburbs in Melbourne, Australia, in order to analyze local perceptions of proximity, mobility, and spaces of community interaction within diverse neighborhoods experiencing socioeconomic and demographic transition. We first look at government policies concerning the two suburbs, which position one suburb within a narrative of gentrification and the other within a narrative of marginalization. We then draw on diverse residents’ experiences and perceptions of local space, finding that these “everyday geographies” operate independently of and often at odds with local policy narratives of demographic and socioeconomic transition. We conclude that residents’ “everyday geographies” reveal highly varied and contested experiences of sociospatial dimensions of local change, in contrast to policy narratives that are often neoliberally framed.

Public space is a topic of great interest for urban scholars and urban planners. Such space, like parks, sidewalks, and plazas, it is argued, can provide the common grounds where the inhabitants of a city meet, exchange ideas, even engage in a variety of cultural performances. This article reports on fieldwork about the use of public space in Shanghai today. We find a great diversity of uses, ranging from vendors who sell their wares to people who engage in heated and extensive political discussions to performers of Beijing opera and ballroom dancing. We also find that the local authorities use a light, and sometimes covert, hand in their oversight of inhabitants in such spaces. Finally, we discover that powerful social differences and inequalities between native inhabitants and working-class migrants, which have emerged during the period of economic reform and market transition, are now actively in evidence in the quality and use of public space in Shanghai. The article puts these findings within a broader theoretical context, concluding in the end that for many—though not all—inhabitants public man is alive and well in Shanghai.

The article focuses on public open space (POS) in small Slovenian cities. It highlights the importance of planning and designing high-quality, diverse POSs, which contribute to the quality of life and urban development in cities. POS is seen as a key physical element of a city and is defined as a non-built urban space that is, under equal terms, accessible to all. The article focuses on both green areas and civic space. Results derive from a physical analysis and survey conducted during research for a doctoral dissertation. Ten small Slovenian cities are selected, where detailed physical analysis and surveys were carried out. Designing high-quality POS for everyday activities is highlighted. The results show that the inhabitants most frequently use POS when going about their everyday business. The article highlights the importance of designing various types of POS for urban development of cities.

For much of the last quarter of the 20th century debates on the state of public spaces in the UK concentrated on issues of neglect and abandonment. New public spaces, increasingly developed by private developers were of equal concern, seen simultaneously as creating privatized, socially exclusive enclaves and characterless ‘anywhere’ regeneration schemes, filled with the same retail outlets, coffee shops and anonymous pieces of public art. This paper addresses this latter concern of homogenization, examining the dynamics behind it and exploring whether local diversity can thrive in the face of such pressure. The paper further reports on a research project that was conducted on a series of prominent public spaces in North East England. The results of this study suggest that the spaces studied are far from passive recipients of global processes. Not only does the quality and quantity of public space often seem to have improved in the recent past, but that long standing locally significant traditions are thriving and new ones are being developed. So, while homogenization in retailing may be significant and harmful to some traditional shopping streets, it is not necessarily damaging the social and cultural lives of the public spaces in our towns and cities to the degree that may be expected.

This paper explores the complex relationship between transgendered people and cities in the USA, and, in particular, their relationship with queer spaces within those cities. Some have argued that queer spaces occur at the margins of society and constitute a safe haven for LGBT oppressed by the hetero-normative nature of urban areas. Data from a survey of 149 transgendered individuals indicate that although queer spaces provide a measure of protection for gender variant people, the gendered nature of these spaces results in continued high levels of harassment and violence for this population. The author argues that the strongly gendered dimensions of these spaces suggests that a discursive revisioning of gender is needed to create more transgender friendly urban spaces.

Residential neighbourhoods developed using various techniques in Kathmandu by both the public and private sectors have not only provided a poor urban setting and failed to address socio‑cultural needs, but are also poor at building a community and creating links to the built environment, with the result that the planned areas lack a sense of place and the inhabitants lack a feeling of home. Although traditional neighbourhoods in the historic core area had many features of a good residential neighbourhood in the past, they are currently undergoing rapid destruction. The residents of these neighbourhoods have little awareness of these issues. The existing legal and institutional frameworks are inadequate and ineffective and cannot address these problems, and so the formulation of design guidelines, their strict implementation, and enhancement of socio‑cultural events including social networking are recommended for future residential neighbourhood development.

The rise of mobile food vending in US cities combines urban space and mobility with continuous online communication. Unlike traditional urban spaces that are predictable and known, contemporary vendors use information technology to generate impromptu social settings in unconventional and often underutilized spaces. This unique condition requires new methods that interpret online communication as a critical component in the production of new forms of public life. We suggest qualitative approaches combined with data-driven analyses are necessary when planning for emergent behavior. In Charlotte, NC, we investigate the daily operations, tweet content, and spatial and temporal sequencing of six vendors over an extended period of time. The study illustrates the interrelationship between data, urban space, and time and finds that a significant proportion of tweet content is used to announce vending locations in a time-based pattern and that the spatial construction of events is often independent of traditional urban form.

Using data from a national survey of public attitudes toward homeless people, this paper evaluates the applicability of the contact hypothesis to in-group/out-group relations that fail to meet the optimal conditions specified in the contact literature. Past efforts are extended by (1) moving beyond face-to-face encounters to consider multiple types of in-group exposure to a highly stigmatized out-group, (2) examining a variety of attitudinal outcomes, and (3) incorporating community context as a possible antecedent of such outcomes. Even after taking selection and social desirability processes into account, all types of exposure are found to affect public attitudes in the predicted (favorable) direction. Moreover, the size of the local homeless population—our primary measure of context—shapes opportunities for most forms of exposure and thus influences attitudes indirectly. These findings suggest that the scope of the contact hypothesis needs to be widened rather than narrowed.

In this essay, I paint a portrait of women in public places and their concerns with crime prevention, based on a survey of the literature and in-depth interviews with women. I argue that there is a situationally appropriate self that crime-prevention advice literature suggests women adopt and that women attempt to adopt. This situated self, however, is sometimes constrained by the general character of public places and by the particular character of the belief system that women have and that the literature recommends with regard to crime prevention. In particular, I view normative beliefs about crime prevention as a "rhetoric" that involves negative contingencies for the woman's situated self in public, including frequent reliance on others, self-profanation, and lengthy or consuming preparations.

This article makes the case for shadowing as ethnographic methodology: focusing attention on what occurs as interlocutors move among settings and situations. Whereas ethnographers often zoom in on one principal set of situations or site, we argue that intersituational variation broadens and deepens the researcher’s ethnographic account as well as affording important correctives to some common inferential pitfalls. We provide four warrants for shadowing: (a) buttressing intersituational claims, (b) deepening ethnographers’ ability to trace meaning making by showing how meanings shift as they travel and how such shifts may affect interlocutors’ understandings, (c) gaining leverage on the structure of subjects’ social worlds, and (d) helping the ethnographer make larger causal arguments. We show the use value of these considerations through an analysis of violence and informal networks in an ethnography of immigrant Latinos who met to socialize and play soccer in a Los Angeles park.

Crowdmapping and geolocated protests form complex multilayered systems of communicated spaces and places that can only be partially grasped by the available literature. This article responds to these limitations by presenting a model for the analysis of the composition of space and place in networked geolocated activities. The model identifies the several forms of expression, opens four modes of analysis (representations, textures, structures, and connections), and allows the consideration of the communication devices involved, while highlighting the forms of power behind the social and cultural practices of protests and crowdmapping. The model is applied to the case of Voces25s, a protest action against the Spanish government’s austerity measures in September 2012, which relied heavily on interactive, networked maps. Furthermore, the raised sensitivity for space and place as forms of social (in)justice opens a fertile empirical research agenda in the area of the governance of communicative spaces.

This paper examines the relationship between ethnic residential segregation and two components of the built environment: the geographic distribution of its elements and their spatial configuration (i.e., the spatial relations and visual access between those elements). This relationship is investigated through a case study of Arab-Jewish residential segregation in Jaffa. Statistical and structural analyses (Q-analysis) of this case show that the conjunction of elements having different meanings (symbolic, cultural, functional, etc.) with spatial and visual integration attributes provides varying conditions for the expansion of the Arab Jewish residential patterns, a process potentially affecting the geographic scale intensity of residential segregation. It was found, for example, that public land uses having relatively 'neutral' ethnic and symbolic meanings (e.g. commercial sites and parks) and spatially integrated with the surrounding urban environment tend to moderate residential segregation. Identification of the institutional character of the built environment—segregation/encounters in mixed ethnic areas—may contribute to a more socially oriented spatial policy.

In this article I explore how an integrated approach to the anthropological study of urban space would work ethnographically. I discuss four areas of spatial/cultural analysis—historical emergence, sociopolitical and economic structuring, patterns of social use, and experiential meanings—as a means of working out of the methodological implications of broader social construction theoretical perspectives. Two plazas in San Jose, Costa Rica, furnish ethnographic illustrations of the social mediating processes of spatial practices, symbolic meaning, and social control that provide insight into the conflicts that arise as different groups and sociopolitical forces struggle to claim and define these culturally significant public spaces.