Small Town Public Life

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Abstract

A line in urban space discourse measures ‘publicness’ by numbers of people.
The rationale seems to be: the more people registered in urban public space,
the better public life, and hence the better urban spaces.
This quantification of ‘publicness’ is supported by the increasing use of
tracking methods, where people are tracked via GPS and smartphones. The
data collected may be combined with maps, and illustrated in diagrams. These
often persuasive and easily digested diagrams are used as arguments and as
proof–evidence–of the success of specific design or of the quality of advice on
such. The quantification of ‘publicness’ may thus accommodate an increasing demand for evidence-based solutions and proposals that also planning
and architectural design are met with.
By this, the question of ‘publicness’ is reduced and simplified to graphs
and numbers, but this seems too superficial when talking about people, and
qualities in public life and urban space. A public square in front of a railway
station may not be a nice place to be even though there are a lot of people.
Such a quantification of ‘publicness’ might be relevant as documentation
and argumentation discussing public life in urban space in major cities and
metropolises, but applied to smaller towns and villages, it seems out of scale.
Often there are not enough people to fill the spaces, except for special occasions or at specific times of the day. Small town public life may very well take
place in other towns and sites, and in other forms than seen in the major cities. This article describes and discusses forms of small town public life and
public space and suggests increased site sensitiveness in dealing with ‘publicness’ in minor towns and settlements.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftCloud-Cuckoo-Land
Vol/bind23
Udgave nummer37
Sider (fra-til)101-113
Antal sider13
ISSN1434-0984
StatusUdgivet - dec. 2018

Emneord

  • public space
  • teori
  • metode

Kunstnerisk udviklingsvirksomhed (KUV)

  • Nej

Citationsformater