The deadline has been extended for the submissions (in the form of a 350-word abstract) for consideration as chapters in an edited volume exploring approaches and strategies of creating public spaces in contemporary cities as well as the practices of its ‘appropriations’ by the city publics.

On looking at the panorama of contemporary cities, one might well say that the traditional public spaces are irreversibly shrinking and collapsing. Even more so, one might argue that the loss of traditional ‘form’ or ways of spatial experience would definitely affect the role of traditional public space in building up a civic identity, and even destroy the very sense of ‘traditional urbanity.’ Yet, paraphrasing Mark Twain, we would suggest that rumors of the death of public spaces in a city have been a bit exaggerated. And the story of public space is far from over. For ‘publicness’ /of space/ as such is not a matter of scholarly definition or a product of labors of urban designers. The ‘publicness’ of space – public space – is produced through its use as public space (cf. Mitchell).

“Within the dense press of the built fabric the greatest luxury of all is empty space. Whether it is used for the spectacle of pomp or for play, the open frame is politically charged; the activities encompassed, freighted with consequence. Only here can a representative portion of the populace mass to make its mood known at a glance. Public space as it is successfully reshaped is an artifact of the collective passions that bind society: from civic protest or regimented ceremonies of consensus, to leisure pursued in an arcadian idyll, or through the ritualized consumption of products and aestheticized environments. Even at its most trivial, the mere presence of a public realm is testimony to the insistence of our need periodically to rediscover the physical fact of community.”

This seminal and emotionally charged Spiro Kostof’’s paragraph presents the essentials of our account of public space. Open public spaces in the city we associate primarily with traditional urban units, such as city park, city street, city square, piazza or plaza.

On the one hand, open public spaces in the city provide a physical ‘place’ for the citizens to claim their right to the city. While on the other hand, it appear as a scene of the civic life, an arena for elaborate social spectacle, place of urban ritual and interaction.

Ideally, meeting in public spaces, two social/spatial registers – the everyday and the political/official – are to complement each other, rather than set out conflicts. This very ‘ideal’ of public space suggests that it should be open and accessible to all, regardless of social or material status. Furthermore, the emphasis on a normative ideal of public space is centered at formulating of a definition of ‘common good,’ and has its echo in longing for articulation of the principles of ‘spatial justice.’ The word ‘justice’ (and spatial justice, in particular) retains its effect as a mobilizing concept. And as David Harvey rightly contends, its mobilizing power cannot be neglected, since “right and wrong are words that power revolutionary changes.”

There are certain sites in the city – open public spaces – where the political gets its ‘visible presence’: “… place within which political movements can stake out the territory that allows them to be seen (and heard),” as Don Mitchell puts it. Such are Taksim Square (Taksim Meydani) in Istanbul, or Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) and Shevchenko Park in Kyiv. Only by claiming space in public, by creating public spaces diverse social groups can become public. In this sense, public spaces are absolutely essential to the functioning of democratic society (cf. Fraser, Mitchell). Otherwise, - having been ‘stripped off’ its political component - public space would be tamed and get paved under ‘status-laden art’ of the ‘designer squares’, and the most likely futures of public spaces will be its “domestication by cappuccino” (cf. Zukin)

Through a series of chapters, the volume aims to explore the following clusters of questions:

  • Public space as ‘generalizing’ and ‘mobilizing’ concept in its relation to historical/contemporary contexts
  • Complexity and contradictions: should we long for an ‘ideal’ of public space?
  • Open public spaces in post-socialist cities
  • Practices of appropriation of ‘conventional’ /traditional and creating new public spaces in contemporary cities
  • Commercialization of public spaces, public-private partnership: its limits, arguments pro- and contra; public spaces and tourism, ‘branding’, reconstruction, revitalization, local communities, etc.
  • Quasi-public spaces, practices of Disneyfication and ‘beautification’, ‘popular urbanism’
  • Rethinking public spaces in small towns
  • Public spaces in the perspective of center-periphery - spatial and symbolic disposition; Does ‘bedroom community’ or commuter town need public space?
  • Who is paying for public space? Governance of public spaces in the city
  • Public spaces and ‘urban commons’
  • Shaping public spaces: from no man’s land to the place of social cooperation
  • Do we need a ‘checklist’ for a proper public space?
  • Public space as a site of conflict: conflicting memories, conflicting values, conflicting interests, conflicting narratives of place, etc.
  • Restructuring/renovation/revitalization/changes in public spaces: ‘new functionality’ vs. ‘local tradition’
  • Public space as a site of political protest
  • De-secularization of public spaces

We invite you to submit short proposals in English, German, or Ukrainian (up to 350 words). We plan to publish a book-version in Ukrainian and an e-version in English.

A 350-word proposal should be sent either to the editor, Dr. Svitlana Shlipchenko: svitlana.shlipchenko[at]gmail.com; or to the project coordinator, Iuliia Popova: Iuliia.Popova[at]ua.boell.org