Private ownership of public spaces has become an increasingly prominent phenomenon in NYC, although there are mixed feelings about its use. One instance I found which outlines one of the issues associated with it is the Occupy Wall Street protest. In an article outlining the Occupy Wall Street protest in September 2011, it spoke about how the protest took place in Zuccotti Park. This park was privately owned by Brookfield Properties and Goldman Sachs which lead to questions about how to respond to the protest. Zuccotti Park was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, as opposed to other city-owned spaces which have specific closing times, which made the protesters able to continue throughout the night. In addition, because the protest took place in a privatively owned public space, the regulations set indicated that both the police and the owners didn’t have the ability to remove the protesters, although the owners did have the ability to impose rules for the space.
This situation is just one instance in what is probably hundreds which shows an inherent flaw in POPS, how do we decide who and how to regulate the space. This connects to this weeks reading “union square and the paradox of public space” because Sharon Zukin discusses the beginning of privately owned public spaces in NYC and how they came to be so widespread. Overall, private ownership of public spaces has pros and cons that we need to evaluate in order to determine if this is something we can improve on.
Questions:
- What other reasons would people be opposed to POPS?
- Do the redeeming aspects outweigh the negative aspects of POPS, or should we strive to eliminate them?
- What do you consider a truly “public” space?
article: https://www.dnainfo.com/20111010/downtown/occupy-wall-street-puts-spotlight-on-privately-owned-public-spaces/
