Extract
Security and the urban public sphere.
Abstract
Stories of decline have always been told about the city: In the 19th century about the deterioration of morality and order in the modern city, in the 20th century about the destruction of urbanity through functionalist urban development, and today about the loss of public space. This article defends the thesis that, although shifts are taking place in the public and private spheres, it cannot be concluded without further ado that this constitutive polarity of the European city is suffering deterioration. The thesis will be examined by taking the example of new surveillance systems in cities. It is argued that such systems are quite unable to eliminate the fundamental insecurity and ambivalence associated with public space. Fears resulting from social and economic insecurity are projected into public space, which can lead to excessive controls, which can indeed impair the publicness of urban spaces. Public Space in the European City "A city is a settlement in which the whole of ... life has a tendency to polarise, i.e., to take place either in the social aggregate state of the public sphere or in privacy ... The stronger the polarity and interaction between the public and private spheres is, the more urban is ... the life of a settlement" (Bahrdt 1998: 83 f.). The polarity between publicness and privacy can be specified in four dimensions (Siebel 2000): legal: public space is governed by public law, private space is under the private authority of the proprietor--and the power to define who may use premises and for what purpose differs accordingly; functional: the public space of squares and streets is devoted to market and political functions, the private spaces of business and home to production and reproduction; social: "frontstage" (Goffman 1973) public space is the locale of stylized, reserved behaviour, and that of anonymity. Private space, in contrast, is "backstage" (ibid.), a place of intimacy, emotionality, and "domesticated vital functions" (Gleichmann 1976); material/symbolic: a broad repertoire of architectural and urban development elements signal the accessibility or exclusivity of spaces. Design, materials, and symbols heighten and spell out the legal, functional, and social differentiation of public and private spaces (Wagner 1999). With the polarity between publicness and privacy, Bahrdt has developed an ideal-typical concept to characterize the special nature of the European city. But it is more than a heuristic tool for sociological analysis. It is norma...See the full content of this document
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