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Public Space Design and Social Cohesion: An

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1
INTRODUCTION
From Mixing with Strangers to Collective
Placemaking: Existing Theories, Policies
and Practices around Social Cohesion in
Public Space Design
Patricia Aelbrecht, Quentin Stevens and Bobby Nisha
Social cohesion is an idea that all societies aspire towards though its definitions and
the means to achieve it have been always subjects of contestation (Jenson, 1998).
Traditionally understood as the state of affairs concerning how well people form
xvii
an effective and meaningful whole, it is often considered an indicator of a well-
functioning society (Stevenson and Waite, 2011). During recent history, however, the
value of social cohesion is being questioned (Mann, 1970; Mouffe, 2000). Over the
last two decades, societies worldwide are facing serious challenges to achieve it and
many no longer place it as an important precondition to become fully democratic
(Mouffe, 2000). A context of rising diversity, pluralism, neoliberalism, austerity and
a series of ethnic conflicts and terrorist attacks have brought about a culture of
fear, intolerance and distrust of strangers, which is being evidenced in our everyday
public spaces.This context has led to an increasing effort from national governments
to address these challenges, either through more culturally sensitive social policies
and public realm programmes or through domesticating and disciplining strangers
by tightening the control, access and use of public spaces (Amin, 2002).
Nevertheless there is a growing belief that public spaces are the key contact
and encounter spaces and are thus essential tools to achieve or maintain cohesion
(Parkinson, 2012), despite that many scholars dispute this analysis (Amin, 2008).
All over the world we are witnessing a great investment in research and practice,
on the one hand, to identify the types of public spaces and the qualities that
support or constrain social cohesion and, on the other hand, to propose solutions
to improve them (Lownsbrough and Beunderman, 2007). Although a lot of
progress has been made to further our knowledge on these issues, there is still
limited understanding today of what social cohesion really means, how it is played
out in different cultural contexts, how it can be achieved through the provision of
public space, and whether urban design has an important role to play in it.
2
2 P. Aelbrecht et al.
This book is a first attempt to bring together scholarly knowledge at the

intersection of public space design and social cohesion and to take a global view
on scholarly research and urban design practice in both the Global North and
Global South.To do so, it gathers research from a number of leading and emerging
scholars and practitioners from the Global North and Global South to share their
knowledge and experience on these issues. Adopting a comparative perspective, it
discusses various case studies in different cultural and social contexts with distinct
planning and design ideals in order to understand both their commonalities and
differences, and to uncover the emerging trends in terms of theories and practices
that can expand our knowledge on the topic.
This introduction provides the context and framework for the volume and is
presented in four sections. The first section sets the scene for the book. It inquires
into the concepts of public space, urban design and social cohesion, tracing
their evolution and changes to further inquire into the interplay of dynamics
between these concepts. The second section reviews the existing knowledge at
the intersection of urban design and planning and social cohesion and seeks to
establish the groundwork for the socio-spatial relationship dynamics this book is
investigating. The third section describes the aims and objectives of this book and
how it contributes to existing knowledge. To do so, it establishes the framework
of key themes explored in this book between its two focal areas of public space
design and how public behaviour evidences ideas about social cohesion.The fourth 2
section explains the structure of the book and describes some of the approaches
taken by our chapter contributors.
Conceptualizing Public Space, Urban Design and

Social Cohesion
Public space plays a vital role in our social lives (Sennett, 1977, Cattell et al., 2006,
Amin, 2006). It contributes to people’s attachment to their cities, neighbourhoods
and local communities, creates opportunities for social interaction, social mixing
and inclusion and community building, and supports people’s well-being and
individual and group identities.
Urban design has the potential to shape complex urban futures by crafting the
physical setting for life in cities. It is important to further investigate what is its
power to achieve socially cohesive public spaces.
The rising diversities, pluralism, neoliberalism and austerity in contemporary
cities increase the need to support and enhance social cohesion. However, there are
no clear answers as to the means to achieve it, though social scientists have aspired
to identify them for more than a century. Public space in its role as the bedrock
of people–place interactions plays an important role in facilitating or inhibiting
opportunities for social cohesiveness. But what the urban design nuances are that
contribute to social cohesion is a key question this book will seek to answer. It
is important to understand the concepts of public space, urban design and social
3
Introduction 3
cohesion individually before inquiring into the interplay of dynamics between

these three concepts.
In the literature, the definition of public space can be observed to be traditionally
associated with fixed definitions of society and state (Madanipour, 2003). Public
space has been traditionally defined as a shared space that theoretically belongs to
everyone and refers to a neutral ground, which is open and belongs to all. More
importantly, it is often based on strict differentiations between public, private and
parochial realms (Lofland, 1998). Given this context, public space is the spatial
component of the public sphere that is open to all. Though by definition a public
space is considered to be an inclusive, equitable and accessible space, in reality it
is increasingly perceived, experienced and used differently (Madanipour, 2003).
Since the 1960s a whole range of social scientists and designers began to give
a central role to the user’s relationships to places, and we have gained a great
awareness that public space is also a reflection of the cultural values and practices
of its various user groups (Arefi and Meyers, 2003). Different cultural, ethnic,
gender and age groups express and attribute different roles and meanings to public
spaces through their different uses, perceptions and behaviours (Mozingo, 1989;
Loukaitou-Sideris, 1995, 2003; Day, 1999; Hart, 2002; Low et al., 2009).
More recently, we have also been witnessing a series of dramatic technological,
societal and urban changes that are drastically transforming the nature of our
2
cities and their public realms, and the way we experience them (Madanipour,
2003; Akkar, 2005). New technological developments are spurring the
proliferation of new and more mobile forms of communication, association and
social relations through various physical and informational mediums –mainly
the internet –across the public and private realms (Sheller and Urry, 2003). As
a result, the relations between public and private realms are becoming blurred,
and the relations between them increasingly mobile, complex and fluid. At the
same time, the population of cities is growing in size and diversity, rather than
being homogeneous entities as the fixed notions of public tend to define it. As
a result, attitudes towards public space are changing and becoming more varied.
Some theorists point out that there are multiple publics, rather than a singular
public (Fraser, 1990; Watson, 2006). With globalization, the rise of a neoliberal
economy and public disinvestment in cities, cities are adopting a new rhetoric of
urban development, that of the ‘entrepreneurial city’ (Varna and Tiesdell, 2010).
Under the guise of providing a more attractive, safe and ‘liveable’ public realm,
many public spaces have endorsed privatization and control, and are no longer
inclusive or accessible to all.
As a result, many scholars from cultural and political studies have began to
argue that urban public space has a diminished role in shaping civic and political
culture (Amin, 2008). This view, however, is not accepted by urban scholars who
believe that there is a strong link between urban public space and citizenship
(Sennett, 1977; Zukin, 1996; Sandercock, 2003). For them, public spaces in all
their forms are still the ground of participation in politics and human interaction.
4
Since the establishment of urban design as a discipline in the 1980s, its nature
has been highly contested and impossible to define with precision (Knack, 1984;
Rowley, 1994). This is broadly explained by the inter-disciplinarity and breath of
work that it entails –encompassing a wide range of tasks and skills and being at
the intersection of architecture and planning –and its multiple scope, because of
its emphasis on both processes and products.
Urban design has been traditionally associated with large-scale projects and
top-down approaches, and putting the designers at the centre of the decision-
making and authorship of the projects involved, but today this understanding is no
longer valid.There is an increasing belief that urban design is more about enabling
than authoring, a means than an end, and a process rather than a product, in other
words, urban design is increasingly procedural (Shibley, 1982). There are, however,
a number of authors who see urban design as equally engaged in designing both
its final products and its decision environment where all stakeholders including
designers and non-designers operate (Carmona, 2014).
Furthermore, with the increasing prevalence of democratic ideals and
devolution of power to local communities, urban design is increasingly made
by non-designers through their uses, social practices and reclamations of public
spaces.This is an idea supported by books such as Loose Space (Franck and Stevens,
2007) and Insurgent Public Space (Hou, 2010).
Urban design is, therefore, increasingly contingent on the social, political, 4
economic and cultural context, and, by doing so, dependent on the users, owners,
managers and the designers of that space, which act as its conscious agents and
define its outcomes.
This context raises several challenges for contemporary urban design practice.
Urban design is increasingly contested and politicized, raising several ethical issues
and questions: Who are we designing for? What is an appropriate or inappropriate
use of space? Who determines what is good? Furthermore it has different meanings,
roles and significances in different places, raising a fundamental question: Can we
consider it an equal tool in the provision of public spaces and promotion of social
cohesion?
The concept of social cohesion has also been an enduring subject of inquiry
(Friedkin, 2004). Each time societies have faced rapid social and economic change
and their disquieting effects, social cohesion has been brought to the top of the
research and policy agenda. Likewise, many social scientists have attempted to define
it, leading to a proliferation of definitions that are not easy to combine or reconcile
because they often reflect different research and policy agendas (Bruhn, 2009).
Integrative efforts have failed to organize, categorize and operationalize the existing
definitions. Some authors tend to agree that it is a multi-dimensional phenomenon
shaped by multiple factors, so there is no point in seeking a single definition that
encapsulates all. Other authors stress there is a necessity to remain ambiguous in
order to preserve its flexibility of use in both academia and policy domains and
different geographical contexts (Bernard, 1999; McNeill, 2006; Jenson, 2010).
5
Introduction 5
Two traditions of thought can be identified: namely, academic and policy

discourses.
The first tradition originated within the field of social science disciplines,
mainly sociology, and can be traced back to the late nineteenth century in a
context of rapid social change caused by industrialization, urbanization, and
massive immigration. Durkheim (2001 [1884]) was the first to conceptualize it as
an ordering feature of society and the result of social solidarity and shared values.
Since then, it has been a noticeable tendency on the part of sociologists to rework
Durkheim’s definition and to use concepts equivalent to cohesion, such as social
order, social inclusion, social integration and social capital, just to mention a few,
or to associate it with other societal values that are considered good qualities,
such as tolerance, respect and openness to diversity (Dahrendorf, 1995; Maxwell,
1996; McCracken, 1998). However, in reality none of these concepts necessarily
imply cohesion nor are they always conditions for achieving it (Chan et al., 2006).
Another sociological trend is to propose definitions that are broad in scope and
have little reference to empirical data. This is not to say that sociologists have not
made great theoretical contributions, but it is clear that they have been defining
social cohesion as equivalent to other terms rather than defining it per se, and that
they have been more interested in understanding society at large.
The second tradition is from the policymakers, notably from Europe and
4
Canada, and is more recent but increasingly influential. It is since the 1980s that
social cohesion has been placed high on the international political agenda. A series
of structural changes caused by globalization, neoliberalism and rising social and
cultural diversity has led to serious social cleavages and created feelings of fear,
hostility and instability. One reaction of policy communities has been to describe
these changes as evidence of declining social cohesion (Jenson, 2002). Since
then, we have witnessed a considerable proliferation of definitions and visions
of cohesion. However, policymakers have not yet managed to arrive at a clear
working definition, despite frequently using the term in their policy documents
to justify a wide range of research and policy interventions (Jeannotte, 2000b).
A common tendency among policymakers when defining social cohesion is to
confuse its constituent parts with causes or effects.This is visible in both Canadian
and European policy contexts. In Canada, the term social cohesion was first
introduced as a catchword in its long-time policy to promote multiculturalism
(Jackson, 2000). Today, it is an overarching dimension of almost every policy, and
is being defined as encompassing or relating to a wide range of social issues and
problems, such as employment and housing, just to mention a couple. Likewise
in the EU, social cohesion policies have been largely driven and defined by
concerns over social and economic equity (Jeannotte, 2000a). This is not to imply
that policymakers have not made efforts to determine the key dimensions for
measuring social cohesion. Two cases in point are Jenson’s (1998) five dimensions
of social cohesion (belonging, inclusion, participation, recognition, and legitimacy),
and Kearns and Forrest’s four constituent elements of its concept (Common Values
6
and Civic Culture, Social Order and Control, Social Networks and Social Capital, and
Place Attachment and Identity) (Kearns and Forrest, 2000). Rather than searching
for single definitions, these works have reasserted the multi-dimensionality of the
concept. This ongoing proliferation of definitions has caused some alarm among
academics and practitioners, who see this lack of a clear and operational definition
as an obstacle to achieving more concrete research and better policies (Chan et
al., 2006). Competing research has demonstrated that clearer and operational
definitions are narrower and simpler, and can facilitate empirical application and
cross-cultural comparison (Chan et al., 2006).
In the light of a series of violent multi-ethnic events since 2001, including riots
in Bradford and Oldham in the UK, the Council of Europe started to move away
from more traditional views of positive social cohesion and integration, which
are built around social homogeneity and shared values. It called for a concept of
social cohesion for an open and multicultural society, one that focuses on social
inclusion but also recognizes diversity (Council of Europe, 2001). Underpinning
such a concept is the understanding that the meaning of cohesion varies according
to its social context (Forrest and Kearns, 2001). It can be positive and strong
within particular groups and communities, particularly if they live segregated,
inward-looking, closed and parallel lives, but negative outside them across the
wider community (Cantle, 2001).
These new understandings, however, leave more questions than answers. 6
Promoting cross-cultural contact and celebrating diversity is the order of the day
for policymakers and is put forward under the banner of interculturalism, which
goes beyond multiculturalism in its emphasis on recognizing difference (Landry
and Wood, 2008; Cantle, 2012). Another call for an open definition of social
cohesion came from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC,
2012). In a recent report, it observed that the socio-economic context of the
Global South is far more complex than that of the Global North. It evidences
starker social inequalities and urban violence that can result in totally different
understandings and experiences of social cohesion. Recent research in Latin
America, the Caribbean and South Africa further evidenced a need to indigenize
the concept by including local ethics and realities in its conception of solidarity
(IDRC, 2012; Barolsky, 2016). More importantly, it urged policymakers to test and
reframe the established western conceptual policy of social cohesion in order to fit
with the conditions of social life and violence in the Global South.
Finally, there has been an increasing belief that social cohesion has a
spatial dimension, and therefore can be promoted through urban design and
planning mechanisms at different scales, including national spatial frameworks,
regional planning, city-wide planning, neighbourhood design and public space
design (Kearns and Forrest, 2000; UN-Habitat, 2014) A number of successful
experiments have demonstrated that more compact, better connected and
integrated places can enhance urban equity and support social cohesion. More
importantly, they have shown that the key to success lies in investing in the local
7
Introduction 7
scale of neighbourhoods and public spaces, as they remain important dimensions

of our everyday life and are where conflicts about solidarity and exclusion are
often played out (Marcuse, 1995; Peters et al., 2010). This has become even more
evident since we have entered a new era of post-neoliberalism and of increasing
economic deregulation and power devolution to the local level. A lot of work has
been done to explore social cohesion at the neighbourhood level, but work on
public space is still in its infancy (Forrest and Kearns, 2001; Witten et al., 2003;
Tolsma et al., 2009).
One of the few existing but largest reviews of the social use of everyday public
spaces was that undertaken by Cattell et al. (2006), which was pivotal to the
understanding of the interplay between physical and social factors in how they
affect social cohesion. It argued for an acknowledgement of the social role of new
public and quasi-public spaces, to understand people’s place attachments; to allow
the coexistence of different users’ lifestyles, uses and behaviours, and to recognize
marginal and problem groups as part of the community.
Dempsey’s research (2009) develops work along the same lines as the previous
study, offering further insights that challenge the environmental deterministic
approach that suggests that the good quality of the built environment alone
can achieve social cohesion. She identified several associations between physical
and non- physical factors (perceived qualities for users) that can influence
6
social cohesion, suggesting that we cannot divorce the spatial from the social
environment. No spatial quality can be understood without reference to the
subjective experience of the users. But she acknowledged that more research is
needed to explore a wider range of factors and to include a cultural dimension in
the analysis to substantiate this finding. Features of quality may differ according to
different cultural contexts.
The conclusions that emerge from this literature review are as follows:
As we have seen, both conceptualizations of public space, urban design and
social cohesion are always evolving and contested. Public space is traditionally
understood as open and as belonging to all. Today, with globalization, new
technological advances and increasing social diversity, it is taking new forms,
meanings and roles, which are creating new needs and demands upon our cities
and our lives, and changing the ways social cohesion is defined, experienced and
negotiated. To understand its new and complex nature, we need more studies that
foreground its social potential and allow us to examine it in relation to these newly
emerging socio-spatial dynamics. Likewise, urban design is also a disciplinary field
that is increasingly complex and broad in scope. It is no longer concerned only
with its final products, but also in creating the right decision-making environment
that enables them, hence, asking us to pay equal attention to the different processes
involved in its making and to its outcomes.
Social cohesion is an idea that most societies aspire towards but which brings
to the surface very divergent ideas on what it means and how it can be achieved.
We continue to lack clear and operational definitions, and to know little of how
8
it is played out in different cultural contexts, and how it can be achieved through
public space design.
These knowledge gaps are the issues that motivate this book. We want to find
more clear and rigorous working definitions of public space and social cohesion,
to understand how they are experienced and understood in different geographical
contexts, and to examine the role played by urban design in shaping social
cohesion. To accomplish these aims, the tasks of this book are threefold.
First, it sets out to challenge the broad conceptions and conventions of the
academic and policy literature. To do this, it brings together fourteen chapters of
case-study research –all of which have collected and analysed primary data –that
empirically elaborate and test both existing and emerging definitions of public
space and social cohesion.
Second, it looks to social cohesion at the local level, through a micro-social and
a cross-cultural perspective, two perspectives that are still largely under-explored.
It does so by gathering fourteen case studies from various geographical contexts
of the Global North and South that can allow an international comparison of
public space design and social cohesion building, and of the theories, policies and
practices that underlie them.
Third, this book wants to reassert the spatiality of social cohesion, i.e. the idea
that social cohesion has a spatial dimension, is contextually situated and spatially
defined. To do so, this book has placed at the centre of its inquiry and as its 8
central question how cohesion is created and supported in public space by its
urban design. This is a question concerning which all the selected chapters aim to
provide answers or reflections.
Existing Knowledge at the Intersection between Planning and

Urban Design, and Social Cohesion
It is since the nineteenth century that social cohesion has become a topic of
concern for almost every western society. With the rise of industrial capitalism in
the late eighteenth century, cities grew larger in size and in population and, in this
process, their relatively cohesive and homogeneous populations gave way to the
creation of a society of strangers (Wirth, 1938; Madanipour, 2003). Social relations
based on kinship gave way to relations based on contract and exchange. Some
major thinkers of the time saw this change as a positive development in human
relations (Durkheim, 1984). It created the possibilities for new forms of friendship,
which were more genuine, being free from involuntary kin ties. For other authors,
this also represented the beginning of the loss of community and social cohesion
(Tonnies, 2001 [1957]). These changes marked an important turning point in the
social life of cities.
Early observers of cities described public life as too overwhelming and even
overstimulating.This was well expressed in Engels’ descriptions of the phenomenon
of crowds in the streets of London as a sign of brutal indifference towards one
9
Introduction 9
another and by Simmel’s observations of people’s ‘blasé attitude’ as a response to

the overstimulation of urban life (Engels, 1993 [1887]; Simmel, 1903).
The situation became more acute when cities started to witness a change in
their demographics in terms of ethnicity and race. This was particularly evident
with the mass immigration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
which occurred in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom
(Sennett, 1996). This situation had a tremendous impact on the planning of cities
and neighbourhoods. It led first to a wave of ethnic and class segregation, whereby
new immigrants segregated themselves by self-selection in a settlement or through
pressure by a majority or dominant group. There followed a pattern of continued
segregation through a succession of old immigrants moving out and new
immigrants moving into a zone of transition of mixed residential and commercial
uses in between the inner circles of the central business district (CBD) and the
factory zone and the outer circles of the residential zones –a phenomenon which
was explained at the time by the Chicago School sociologists using a concentric
ring model that represents the distribution of social groups and users in concentric
rings (Park and Burgess, 2012 [1925]). In the 1990s this phenomenon began to be
called ‘neighbourhood succession’ –and it is still occurring today in the United
States with the constant arrival of immigrants from Latin America (Grigsby, 1986).
The twentieth century saw profound societal, technological and political
8
changes. It cultivated a democratic public culture more sympathetic to diversity,
cultural dialogue and openness towards difference in terms of race, class, gender
and, later, sexuality. This was visible in the advent not only of a more sensitive
policy discourse towards social integration and cohesion but also of a series of
housing, neighbourhood and urban regeneration programmes that celebrate social
diversity. Most of these programmes have been built on the premise that social
cohesion and diversity are best achieved through social mixing, and that physical
planning and design have an important role to play, though many authors have
for a long time rejected this analysis (Amin, 2002; Mouffe, 2000). Housing, and
the regeneration of town centres and public space programmes in Europe have
been the most clearly influenced by this idea. Since the early twentieth century,
we have witnessed the creation of mixed communities through housing of people
of mixed ethnicity, tenure and income.This idea was enthusiastically implemented
in Europe, particularly in the UK, in the first industrial towns, garden cities, and
inter-war and post-war New Towns. Although planners continue to be the main
advocates of social mixing, many social researchers began as early as the 1950s to
question its benefits and liabilities (Sarkissian, 1990; Gans, 1961). Many attempts at
mixing proved unsuccessful, raising questions from social scientists as to whether
a forced social mix is at all desirable when there is ample evidence that, when
people have the choice, they prefer homogeneous neighbourhoods of similar
social backgrounds, and whether it is workable in practice when there are so many
other factors affecting the success of social mixing such as education, the labour
market and taxation (Ineichen, 1972; Colomb, 2011). Nonetheless, in the 1980s,
10
particularly in multicultural societies such as the United States and Australia, an

alarming growth of the concentration of low-income residents in inner-city and
suburban neighbourhoods led to a revival of interest in social mix. But this time,
there was an increasing acceptance that there was a need to change the scale of
mixing. Herbert Gans (1961) was a major advocate for urban block homogeneity,
as studies have shown that the block is the major social arena, and to recommend
social mix only at the wider community level. Later, he conceptualized this idea
as the urban village (Gans, 1982). Other authors also began to recognize the
importance of the physical environment as a mediator of social mixing. The site
plan, architecture, and design and management of physical settings, particularly of
communal and public spaces, started to be recognized as major determinants of
successful social mixing and thus the essential tools to enhance social cohesion
(Newman, 1972; Sarkissian, 1990). This recognition can be seen as part of a move
since the 1970s of bringing planning and urban design closer to the fields of
social sciences to explore the psychological, social and cultural dimensions of
placemaking. Public space regeneration programmes throughout the 1980s and
1990s had the aim of identifying potential contact spaces and desirable qualities that
support positive social cohesion, and ways to improve them (Holland et al., 2007;
Lownsbrough and Beunderman, 2007). However, most of the acquired knowledge
on the relationship between public space design and social cohesion is rather
outdated, as it was mainly produced during the 1960s and 1970s, and is limited in 10
its scope as it focuses more on the social than the spatial attributes of public spaces
(e.g. strategies such as temporary uses and events that can enliven public spaces
and contribute to building social bonds), and fails to recognize the multiplicity of
users, experiences and needs (Shaftoe, 2012; Simões Aelbrecht, 2016). The poor,
the elderly, teenagers, immigrant communities and the homeless are some of the
user groups that are often left out of consideration or even designed out.
Despite significant progress, in the twenty-first century this sympathetic move
towards social and cultural inclusion is slowly being replaced by a culture of
fear, intolerance and distrust, which is being evidenced in our everyday public
spaces (Flusty, 1997; Ellin, 1997; Graham and Marvin, 2001). These feelings have
been fuelled by large-scale immigration, particularly in Europe, and by rising
neoliberalism, austerity and a series of events since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in
New York City, the bombings in 2005 and riots in 2011 in London, and more
recently since 2015 the refugee crisis in Europe and its associated ethnic conflicts.
Over the last two or three decades, Europe has been facing great demographic
changes. The opening up of the EU market and its borders, and its economic
prosperity, have led not only to an unprecedented movement of people within
Europe but also to a mass immigration of non-European and particularly non-
white Muslim citizens to Europe. Today, most European nation-states are being
introduced to a kind of racial, ethnic and religious diversity that is rather unusual
for those states, comparable only to the experience of countries such as the United
States, Canada and Australia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
1
Introduction 11
This context has greatly affected the politics, ideologies and policies of
multiculturalism in Europe. Some authors have been arguing that we are witnessing
a crisis of multiculturalism (Modood, 2007, 2013). There is more criticism
voiced against it than support, especially as events such as the 9/11 terrorist
attacks appeared to involve those new immigrant groups. Since then, even the
fiercest advocates of multiculturalism are saying that it has failed, that it ‘fostered
fragmentation rather than integration’ and is to blame for these events (Modood,
2007).This state of affairs has gradually led to a shift of governmental discourse in
many societies that were previously pro-multiculturalism, such as the UK and the
Netherlands, from promoting diversity, pluralism and cosmopolitan engagement
to domesticating and disciplining strangers (Parekh, 2001; Amin, 2002; Modood,
2007, 2013;Vertovec and Wessendorf, 2010). National governments are calling on
urban managers to get tough on crime, minorities, youth, and asylum seekers, and
to step up measures of surveillance and control. This is part of a growing belief
that the problems of social difference can be tackled not by promoting cohesion,
but conversely by regulating, through discipline, the patterns of relations among
strangers in everyday spaces such as workspaces, neighbourhoods and public
spaces. This is visible in the proliferation of new strategies and mechanisms to
control behaviour in our public spaces.This has included designing environments
that have almost no public space or, if they have, there are many restrictions of
10
access and use (Sorkin, 1992; Davis, 1990; Stevens, 2009).
This excessive proliferation of controlled public spaces has been accentuated
since the 1980s by the domination of a neoliberalist urban agenda. Cities have
become more dependent upon private investment, and one major consequence
has been the increasing proliferation of public spaces under private ownership and
control, with a more exclusionary nature (Cybriwsky, 1999).
To cope with this neoliberalist context, cities have been engineering new types
of urban policies and practices to promote social cohesion. Some of these policies
and practices work under the orthodoxies of neoliberalism. Others represent a more
revanchist type of urban practice and counter-politics, which work both for and
against the current economic and political constraints (Peck, 2012; Tonkiss, 2013).
The former type is well typified by gentrification policies –the moving of
middle-income into low-income inner-city neighbourhoods. Gentrification is
being increasingly state-led and promoted as a ‘positive public policy tool of social
mixing’ in policy circles, on the assumption that it will lead to more socially
mixed, liveable and tolerant communities, thereby increasing their social cohesion
(Cameron, 2003; Lees, 2008). Yet there is little evidence that gentrification is
able to achieve this goal. Gentrification has always been viewed with criticism.
Although it is often used as a means to trickle down to the lower and working
class, it has often a hidden social cleansing agenda leading to social displacement
and segregation of the poor (Uitermark et al., 2007).
The revanchist practices form a new type of austerity urbanism, also called
Tactical Urbanism –which refers to the term ‘tactics’ as used by Michel de Certeau
12
(1984) –and is associated with a number of practices that are characterized for being
temporary, pop-up, guerrilla and do-it-yourself (DIY) types of urban interventions
in often disregarded spaces (i.e. unused or dead spaces), which subvert orthodox
planning practices, property laws or public policy (Tonkiss, 2013). This type of
austerity urbanism is the outcome of situated local social action, which happens
through practices of ‘commoning’ of land, things and resources. It is increasingly
accepted that such new alternative practices provide us with lessons that can help
us ‘to make better, though imperfect, urban spaces’ in times of economic restraint
(Tonkiss, 2013).There is also growing evidence that, because they are the outcome
of collaborative organizational processes and social relations and intentional
placemaking practices, some may have the potential to generate more progressive
forms of politics and citizenship and new forms of association and socialization
(Crossan et al., 2016; Hou, 2010).
However, despite the fact that in recent years we have witnessed many successful
examples of bottom-up provision of new gardens, allotments and public spaces
for collective use, there is still criticism that they are complicit in the system
(McClintock, 2014; Mould, 2014).
Alongside this evolution of planning and design practice in building social
cohesive communities, there have been several instances of thinking and
interrogating the prospect and possibilities for more just, tolerant and democratic
cities and societies. Although this thinking is usually interpreted as utopian and 12
therefore possessing limited applicability in practice, it is increasingly acknowledged
that it is becoming more urgent, especially given the growing dissatisfaction with
contemporary public space. This thinking has taken many forms, ranging from
critiques to material and imaginary proposals. However, to the disappointment
of many, there is a visible decline of utopianism, and instead a domination of a
tradition of critiques that focus relentlessly on problems without pointing to any
solutions (Lees, 2004; Pinder, 2002).This task is usually in the hands of progressive
urbanists on the left who long for social justice. But, more recently, practitioners
have also been playing an important role, looking for solutions to the problems.
The New Urbanists have been the most proactive practitioners. They have
been extremely successful in promoting and implementing their ideas, through
congresses and manifestos and in the creation of smaller, denser walkable and self-
sufficient environments. Careful examination of the charter of New Urbanism
shows their commitment to the idea that ‘social and environmental problems need
to be resolved in tandem’, which is readily expressed by establishing a strong
link between planning and design principles and a number of desired social goals
(Barnett, 2000; Talen, 2002).The principles apply to a range of scales from a single
building to an entire community and emphasize nine key desired spatial qualities
established by the urban design and planning literature –such as walkability,
connectivity, mixed-use and diversity, mixed housing, quality architecture and
urban design, traditional neighbourhood structure, increased density, green
transportation, sustainability and quality of life –and are clearly focused on
13
Introduction 13
creating liveable sustainable communities through the promotion of community,

social equity and the common good (Katz et al., 1994).
Similar ideas have also been explored through works of a more theoretical and
philosophical nature, some of which have become quite influential in academia.
Lefebvre (1996), Amin and Thrift (2002), Mouffe (2000), Sandercock (2003),
Young (1990, 2011) and Fainstein (2010), among others, have foregrounded
visions of an ideal and democratic city as one where social relations affirm group
differences. These visions follow the views of an agonistic cultural politics, a
politics of difference and identity that values open participatory and open-ended
engagement based on the ‘vibrant clash of democratic positions’ (Mouffe, 2000:
104). They stem from the belief that such engagement can pave the way for more
transparent and stronger social relations. These views contrast sharply with the
dominant national and supranational policy discourses which only value positive,
deep social engagement, civic agreement, and trust and shared values (Jenson,
1998, 2010; Alaluf, 1999; Jeannotte, 2000a).
After this overview, we may ask where are we now in terms of theories, policies
and practices? What have we learned from past successes and failures? Is there
any new emerging knowledge? And can this knowledge, chiefly from the Global
North, be transferred to other cultural contexts in the Global South that are
dramatically different?
12
Such questions provide the impetus for this book and establish the groundwork
for the socio-spatial relationship dynamics this book is investigating, as outlined in
the following section.
Emerging Ideas on Public Space Design and Social Cohesion

This section will establish the framework of key themes this book explores
between its two focal areas of public space design and how public behaviour
evidences ideas about social cohesion.
Five key themes have been identified, ranging from theoretical to interactional,
procedural, psychological and practical levels, and allowing a multitude of
perspectives on the relation between the two focal areas of public space design
and social cohesion. These themes are the following:
• emerging typologies of public spaces;

• symbolism and sense of belonging;
• design elements that encourage social interaction;
• processes of engagement, participation and placemaking;
• reflections from urban design practice.
Significant knowledge gaps are evident in the established literature on this specific
topic of public space design and social cohesion, despite the growing interest and
acknowledgement that public spaces are the contact spaces and the essential tools
14
to achieve social cohesion. First, current research usually suffers from a knowledge
divide between sociological and urban design scholarship. It either only addresses
the macro-sociological aspects of social life (Shields, 1992; Putnam, 2000; Hajer
and Reijndorp, 2001) or mainly focuses on the physical attributes of public space
(Flusty, 1997; Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee, 1998; Nemeth and Schmidt, 2011).
Second, there is little knowledge exchange between urban design theory and
practice. The nature of design disciplines tends to militate against knowledge
exchange (Griffiths, 2004). The environmental design disciplines broadly lack
confidence, enthusiasm and rigour in engaging with scientific knowledge.
Practitioners’ bodies of knowledge are heterogeneous and somewhat hermetic
(Marshall, 2012). This explains why planners and designers, even if warned by
social scientists, continue to advocate policies of social mixing as an article of faith,
despite these having failed many times to achieve their social goals.
Third, a cultural domination of the Global North is also noticeable, since most
literature is produced in and about the western world, particularly in the UK,
the Netherlands and the United States (Talen, 1999; Dempsey, 2009; Peters et al.,
2010).This situation raises not only practical questions on whether this knowledge
can be transferable to other European contexts and parts of the world, but also
more profound questions on whether social cohesion and the processes involved
in building it are not dramatically different in the different cultural contexts,
particularly in the Global South. 14
This is not to say that there has not been any knowledge advance in any
of these areas, because there has been. In recent years, research on the relation
between public space design and social cohesion has regained momentum (Uzzell
et al., 2002; Cattell et al., 2008; Dempsey, 2009; Peters et al., 2010).We see this book
as a first attempt to bring this emerging body of work together. All the book’s
authors share a common concern and interest in the socio-spatial relationship
dynamics from the urban design perspective, and this has led to the investigation
of a series of empirical case studies. By bringing the research in this arena together,
this book examines the similarities and differences in the aspects of spatial design
in its process, approach and ability to foster social cohesiveness. While each case
study investigates the specificities of a particular cultural context, the book as a
whole outlines general themes in the global processes of the production of public
spaces and in the understanding and manifestation of the socio-spatial relationship
dynamics involved. It shows how urban design can develop more responsive public
space design approaches to increase social accessibility, inclusivity and interaction.
Given the changing dynamics of demographic change in rapidly urbanizing
contemporary cities, a thorough understanding of the social manifestation of
urban public spaces is a top priority.
The ambition of this edited collection in its approach, content and analysis is
to contribute to knowledge in methodological, theoretical and practical domains,
as follows:
15
Introduction 15
First, the book focuses on the role of public space design in supporting social
cohesion. In doing so, the understanding of public space design is from the analytical
position of behavioural dynamics in public settings, with in-depth examination of
a wide range of contemporary international, national and local cross-cultural case
studies and issues, using various methodological approaches to engage with the
users of the places studied and the key stakeholders involved in their design and
management, such as developers, designers, managers and community of users.
This involves using a wide range of methods, including: societal-based approaches
(historical and discursive) that provide methods that uncover issues of cultural
significance and social change; observational and ethnographic that focus on the
collective experience and use of the groups and individuals within groups; and
participatory design methods that engage with the users during the design process.
Second, the book addresses under-researched issues, including new typologies
of public space, gender-sensitive design, symbolism, the social role of specific
design elements, and place management issues in design, that extend existing
understandings.
Third, the book expands the existing western-focused literature reviewed above,
by offering a wider comparative perspective across the Global North and Global
South and discussing various case studies in different cultural and social contexts
with distinct design ideals and, by doing so, uncovering emerging socio-cultural
14
perspectives of public space design theories and practices that can challenge and
expand the existing knowledge base in urban design.
Fourth, the book adopts an inter-disciplinary approach, which embraces insights
from architecture, urban design, planning, social and cultural geography, ethnic and
racial studies, philosophy, gender studies, history, sociology and anthropology with
a view to create new knowledge that bridges the disciplinary divide.
Finally, the book explores a wide range of experiences of social cohesion from
negative to positive –in other words, from issues of anti-social behaviour, tension
and conflict towards opportunities for the promotion of positive social relations,
sense of belonging and place-based identity.The book also examines a wide range
of social practices –from formal to informal and unplanned activities (those that
happen without being intended), transgressive behaviours (those that are ruled or
designed out) and activism (practices intended to redefine the meanings and uses
of places) and users’ perspectives –including those of various social groups such as
adult groups of varied class, ethnicity, religion and age sensitive groups (e.g. elderly,
women and children) and marginalized groups (e.g. young people, homosexual,
gipsies, immigrants, refugees and the poor).
The following section introduces the key contextual narratives and arguments
across the five themes. The key themes lend a structure to the contribution of
individual case-study investigations to urban design theory and provide a platform
for the mapping of key learnings and understandings from cross-case analysis in
the book’s conclusion.
16
Emerging Typologies of Public Spaces

Most of the literature on public spaces and social cohesion to date has focused on
traditional public spaces, such as streets, squares and particularly parks, and amenity
spaces such as third places, both at the neighbourhood level. This focus can be
attributed to the stance that traditional spaces are the ones that are considered to
be truly public –in other words, that are ‘open and accessible to all’ (Lofland, 1998;
Madanipour, 2003). Second, there is often the assumption that social cohesion needs
to be tackled at the neighbourhood level of residential streets and community parks,
and through the provision of social amenities such as third places. Streets and parks
are the types of spaces that are regarded as ‘everyday spaces’ and that are familiar,
frequently used and can facilitate compulsory social contact, and that are therefore
considered to be the most effective at bringing diverse people together (Amin,
2002; Low et al., 2009). Since the late 1980s there has been a visible quest for
investing in social amenities and more fundamentally in informal gathering places
such as eating and drinking establishments, mostly private businesses for public
use, also called third places (Oldenburg, 1997 [1989]). This is part of a belief that
third places have important community building attributes. Because of their special
characteristics –departure from daily routine, neutrality and levelling, conversation
as primary activity, physical low profile, accessibility in time and location, character
defined by regular clientele, playful mood and homely psychological comfort –it
is usually assumed that they can host the regular, voluntary, informal gatherings 16
and facilitate and foster broader social interaction. This recognition has led many
communities to mobilize great resources to support the creation and preservation
of third places in many city neighbourhoods.
However, recent research attempts have recognized that an expanding number of
typologies of public spaces have emerged, as a result of new lifestyle demands.These
spaces of consumption, transportation and recreation are controlled, specialized and
more exclusive than inclusive, but are nevertheless becoming increasingly valued as
social spaces (Sola-Morales, 1992; Hajer and Reijndorp, 2001; Watson, 2006).
As Sola-Moralles (1992) argued, these spaces have become important collective
spaces since they are neither public nor private but both, and at the same time
allow collective use. Their importance can be explained by their social centrality
–namely, their ability to attract and gather a significant density and diversity of
people, events and activities (Shields, 1992).
Despite this recognition, most of these spaces have received little attention from
researchers and policymakers. Instead, they have frequently been blamed, often
with little empirical evidence, for the decline of the public realm and for being
not only bland and placeless but also socially alienating and highly exclusionary,
due to their privatization, excessive control or artificial, themed designs (Sommer,
1974; Relph, 1976; Sorkin, 1992; Augé, 1995; Shaftoe, 2012).
Past and recent research has also brought growing evidence that a city’s public
spaces serve the wider city and, being thus more oriented to casual, functional
17
Introduction 17
and anonymous uses and encounters, are also important social arenas (Oldenburg,
1997 [1989]; Knox and Worpole, 2007; Shaftoe, 2012; Simões Aelbrecht, 2016).
Although these spaces are usually considered to promote only weak social ties
among unknown others rather than strong and meaningful ties among previous
acquaintances, it is increasingly accepted that the former ties are far more frequent
than the latter and are crucial in sustaining our social life and increasing a sense of
trust and reciprocity (Granovetter, 1973; Putnam, 2000).
Despite the usual interest of planning and urban design in formally designed
and planned public spaces, since the 1990s public sector disinvestment in cities
more and more public spaces have been produced and managed informally or
bottom-up. These sorts of interventions have been seen as part of a new type of
austerity urbanism (Tonkiss, 2013). These spaces may be undefined in terms of
activities and functions, but for this reason they are usually considered to be more
democratic and socially responsive and cohesive public spaces. After all, they are
the outcome of collaborative processes and social relations.
Hence, there is a need to enlarge the research agenda on public space to fully
understand the social performance and cohesiveness of public spaces that are
private or mixed owned, commodified and exclusive, and also to encompass the
full expanding range of contemporary public spaces that exist across cities.
This book aims to address this knowledge gap. To do so, we include a wide
16
range of case studies at both neighbourhood and city levels, encompassing the
newly emerging typologies of public spaces, including waterfront spaces, transit
stations, shopping centres and new types of parks with both green and hard
landscaping. We also examine several cases of informal and bottom-up produced
and reclaimed public spaces which have been advocated since the 1980s as more
flexible, quicker and economic approaches to activate and regenerate urban spaces.
We will look in particular at their potential for social inclusion and cohesion,
which remains largely under- explored in the literature. This is the case, for
example, with various types of public spaces such as community parks, gardens or
allotments that are often created in left-over, unused, abandoned or derelict sites,
either unintentionally through people’s unplanned uses or intentionally through
permanent or temporary interventions involving grass- roots or local interest
groups (Franck and Stevens, 2007; Hou, 2010; Oswalt et al., 2013).
Finally, given our comparative scope between the Global South and North,
this book also examines a wide range of cross-cultural variations on typical types
of public spaces such as streets and squares and, by doing so, it challenges the fixed
definitions and types of public space design advocated in the established urban
design textbooks and manuals (Moughtin, 2003; Carmona et al., 2010).
Symbolism and Sense of Belonging

Since the 1960s, architecture and urban design have responded to the top-down
approach that modernism advocated through humanistic approaches that cater to
18
psychological, social and cultural differences. Modernist space became regarded as

an abstract concept without substantive meaning, while place gained increasing
meaning as the process by which everyday life is inscribed in space (Tuan, 1979).
Since then, the relation between people and place has become an important field
of inquiry. As Hull et al. (1994) state, the glue that bonds people to place and
to each other became recognized as the symbols in the urban fabric that tell a
narrative about the self and the self ’s belonging. This bond then forms the basis
for designing public spaces that are socially cohesive, given people’s longing for
arrangements that maximize congruence between place-based meanings, place-
attachment and collective identity (Hunter and Harold, 1987). Mumford (1961),
in his book The City in History, also establishes that the spatial manifestation of
cities is in large part a symbolic representation of the historical contiguity between
social relations and spatial structures. The quest for meaning, sense of belonging
and sense-making is a biological obsession for the human (Ainsworth, 1989). This
drive for social relationships, such as forming and maintaining social bonds, reflects
an innate tendency that is adaptive and crucial for survival (Ainsworth, 1989;
Barash, 1977; Baumeister and Leary, 1995). In this process, public spaces have an
important role. They are recognized as the physical manifestations of symbolic
values, collective memory, association, celebration and conflict (Cuthbert, 2007). It
is therefore important to understand the relationship between these qualities and
urban form if we are to create public spaces that are socially inclusive and cohesive. 18
The discipline of environmental psychology has studied the relationship
between people and place and has established that the perceptual system that leads
to the exploration of qualities of urban space, including visual, auditory, olfactory,
gustatory and tactile features can help to interpret the conditions under which
humans will behave (Naghizade and Ostadi, 2014).
Likewise, in semiology or semiotics, the study of signs (Rapoport, 1982)
identifies three levels of meaning in urban fabric.The first refers to meaning which
deals with cosmological and supernatural symbolism encoded in architecture and
city level layouts. The second meaning refers to deliberate messages on identity
as intended by the designers. The third meaning deals with the ways in which
the urban fabric channels and interacts recursively with specific local behaviour
and movement. The understanding of this third level of symbolic meaning is
particularly crucial to urban design to establish this link between people and place,
as it is then the anchor that connects the self to its settings. The desire for social
bonds and connections, the need for positive regard from others (Rogers, 1951),
belongingness (Maslow, 1954; Goodnow, 1992; Baumeister and Leary, 1995),
affiliation motivation (McClelland, 1985) and the need for relatedness (Ryan,
1991, 1993; Vallerand, 1997) have been established by psychological research as
basic human needs. There have been a number of studies on concepts of sense-
making that emphasize the importance of a sense of belonging when dealing
with the attributes that foster emotional attachment to place (Sakhaeifar and
Ghoddusifar, 2016). The ties people develop towards spatial locations signify an
19
Introduction 19
important source of strength, recognition and stability (Rogaly and Taylor, 2007,
2009). Though it appears to be a given that people’s attachment to place is the
driving force to getting involved or invested in social activities, its intricacies and
complexities need further understanding. Jenson (2002) classifies belonging as a
major socio-cultural dimension of social cohesion, as it signifies sharing values and
a sense of being part of the same community. The feature of space is regarded as
a facilitator to provide social integrity and foster a sense of belonging in people
(Sakhaeifar and Ghoddusifar, 2016).
Gilchrist et al. (2010) argue that places and affordances for interaction are
crucial to how people see themselves in relation to others. More importantly, they
help to reinforce their identities, which are crucial to provide safety, solidarity
and shelter. The understanding of the fluid and strategic nature of identities can
enable mapping of how people come together in pursuit of shared interests. The
concept of social capital is hence regarded as a collective resource, that comprises
trust, norms and social networks that enable communities and social structures
to coordinate their diverse activities in a cooperative way with the dynamics
of informal relationships and connections (Putnam, 2000). This need for social
relationships is a biological need for the human race as it promotes a sense of safety,
based on certain real or perceived realities (Baumeister and Leary, 1995).The sense
of belonging in social groups is regarded as assisting people to create a shared social
18
identity and enabling them to pursue socially motivated collective goals (Haslam
et al., 2008).This psychological space of identity, Gilchrist et al. (2010: 13) argue, is
where an ‘individual feels secure and can “be themselves” without fear of ridicule,
misunderstanding or hostility’. This inevitable consequence of identity also leads
in the direction of demarcating between ‘us’ and ‘them’. In our contemporary
increasingly complex and diverse society, this can pave the way to seclusion and
discrimination. Following this understanding, this book addresses the question,
with what we know about the psychological constructs of identity, should we
or should we not direct our strategic efforts towards seeking and establishing
commonalities that cut across ethnic and racial differences to construct a higher
order identity?
The aspirational aim of such studies has been to produce places that embed in
them a character of animation and vitality brought about by the presence of people
in a self-reinforcing process. As Sakhaeifar and Ghoddusifar (2016) argue, place
is the most effective factor in shaping identity. Hence, the concepts of identity,
status and belonging co-relate and contribute to the sense of social relationships,
shared values and the reflection of social structures. These collectively impact the
inclusive notions and cohesive annotations in urban spaces.
Understanding how symbolism and meaning foster a sense of belonging and
contribute to place identity is an essential aspect of public space design. Bennett
(2014) focused on the importance of historic, social and material connections
in belonging to place and argued that ‘ontological belonging’ is a moral way of
being in the world. The complexity of this challenge increases when the task is
20
to design socially inclusive public spaces for diverse communities. Aravot (2010)
regards placemaking as an unaccomplished endeavour and that urban design
has ‘disillusioned’ and ‘discredited’ phenomenological placemaking and further
suggests open-endedness and the need for constant re-interpretation of urban
places that provide insights for new creation. This leads to the need for designing
social engagement and not just urban spaces that is based on understandings
constructed out of insight into attributes such as symbolism and a sense of
belonging. This book includes three chapters that offer case-based reviews on
this notion of symbolism, and sense of belonging. The case studies are based
in Amsterdam, Turkey and Berlin, and deal with a wide variety of public space
typology that includes streets, parks and memorials.
Design Attributes that Encourage Social Interaction

Since the 1970s, it has been recognized that urban design plays an important role
in promoting social cohesion in public spaces (Newman, 1972; Vischer, 1986).
By creating areas where a diverse range of people can meet, urban design is able
to increase the level of social interaction, integration and trust in society in ways
that are socially progressive and civilizing (Sennett, 1973). This requires attention
to the design of those public settings that support informal social interaction,
and in particular to the spatial elements that enable it (Stevens, 2006; Simões 20
Aelbrecht, 2016).
Many researchers have attempted to identify the spatial qualities that encourage
or discourage interaction, starting with the seminal works of sociologists such as
Goffman (Goffman, 1963), urban design theorists such as Gehl (1971), Alexander
et al. (1977), Joardar (1978) and Whyte (1980), followed by environmental
psychologists Sommer (1974) and Carr et al. (1993) and landscape theorists Marcus
and Francis (1990). However, a knowledge divide between sociological and design
research is noticeable. On the one hand, social scientists only emphasize the general
qualities that make public spaces friendly, accessible and all-inclusive without any
suggestion on the design elements that shape them (Goffman, 1963; Oldenburg,
1997 [1989]; Lofland, 1998). They usually refer to very general qualities that are
important for social use and bonding between different social and cultural groups.
These include multi-use, accessible and free (or low-cost), clear layout, local and
familiar in character, adaptable, not restricted by gender, race and class, safe and
welcoming (Lownsbrough and Beunderman, 2007).
On the other hand, design researchers, despite their weak theorization of social
life, have produced a substantial body of knowledge about sociability in public
spaces and the role of urban design in shaping it.The seminal works of Gehl,Whyte
and Alexander, and more recent work by Marcus and Francis (1990), Madanipour
(1996), Kaplan et al. (1998), Childs (2004), Franck and Stevens (2007), Mehta
(2013) and Simões Aelbrecht (2016) have identified the key design characteristics
that support social interactions in a wide range of types of spaces, activities and
21
Introduction 21
control and management conditions. Despite their varied research interests, focus
and approaches, they all share an understanding that a good public social space is
responsive to human needs and thus is contextual and adaptable, and therefore
cannot be prescribed, proposing design principles rather than blueprints. Their
list of principles is varied but typically includes: robustness, enclosure, character,
permeability, legibility, diversity and adaptability. Some of these authors have taken
these principles further and identified specific design elements that anchor social
activities (Gehl, 1971), while others have highlighted the elements that make
people feel comfortable in public (Shaftoe, 2012), and the elements that support
and develop informal and unplanned social uses (Stevens, 2006, 2007; Simoes
Aelbrecht, 2016). But there has been little work examining the variations in distinct
geographical and cultural contexts and how these may shape our understanding of
public spaces as a locus of social cohesion. By bringing together emergent research
and practice that bridges knowledge from social sciences and design disciplines
and covers a broad range of geographical and cultural contexts within the Global
North and South, and examines a wide range of both traditional and new design
attributes, this book attempts to fill this gap.
Processes of Engagement, Participation and Placemaking
20
Participation in the planning and design process has become recognized as an
important hallmark of democratic societies. Collective action enables people to
develop shared identities where successful collaboration can empower individuals
to be interested and invest in the shaping of their futures (Gilchrist et al., 2010).
Programmes that aim to foster active citizenship and enable citizen participation
in decision-making have been an integral part of political initiatives to address
inequality and improve cohesion (Creighton, 2005).
Participation as defined by Arnstein (1969) is a categorical term for citizen
power and empowering the end user. Participation and the process of engagement
are regarded as reducing the feeling of anonymity, and engaging end users in the
design process as producing greater public spirit and more user satisfaction (Sanoff,
2000). The bottom-up approach has the potential to ensure that the public space
responds to the needs of its end user. Processes of engagement and participation
have been sought as the most prospective approach to create and manage successful
public spaces.The social relation between users and spaces is nurtured by engaging
the end user in the design process. Goodman (1971) argued that, while the rational
approach to planning can diagnose problems and develop strategies to address
them, a community is made up of groups and interests with goals and values that
are equally legitimate and conflicts between them can only be resolved by means
of a socio-political process. He further reinforces that this process of facilitated
social interaction has the potential to critically affect outcomes. Hence enabling
people to identify and collaborate around a shared problem or potential can be
a strategy to involve people who could otherwise be overlooked, and to build
2
solidarity, common purpose and interdependence. Initiatives such as community

forums and political alliances are regarded as positive enablers to bring people
together from different cultures and priorities to share ideas and to coordinate
their activities (Gilchrist, 2004). Such forums and initiatives foster supportive
connections, enabling social relationships for the community to become stronger
and more cohesive.
The traditional form of participation with people through consultation in design
becomes the melting pot of conflicts, which arise due to a mismatch between the
perceived realities of its stakeholders. As an organized social process, this approach
has been under the critics’ scanner for becoming a potentially manipulated part
of any project where the ideology of giving users a voice has become a process
that stifles them (Gregory, 2000). Critics point out that partnership arrangements
ignore the complexity and multiplicities of people’s identities and that simple
mechanisms of engagement are not sufficient for people to disengage from their
multiple layers of attachment and social belonging (Bryan et al., 2009). Given the
complexity, research suggests that there is a need to find ways for individuals to
participate with their ‘whole identity’ in its entirety, as opposed to leading social
groups to suppress particular aspects of their complex life (Gilchrist et al., 2010).
There are, however, limitations in methodologies to engage people. Hence there
is a need to understand and develop approaches and participatory methods that
can improve social engagement, and for specific studies that focus on the impact 2
and effect of participation in achieving social cohesion. This will further help to
unlock the potential of participation as a tool to enhance social engagement and
cohesion.
Public spaces are constantly transformed by the dynamics of a continually
changing people– place relationship. For this reason, a standard normative
technique of participation that regards the participant as ‘standard’, disregarding
the multiplicities of the dynamic relationship, is not always applicable (Blundell
Jones et al., 2005). Till (2011), drawing on Miessen’s work (2010), considers that
the best strategies are those that bring the presence and voices of the people that
are involved in the making, occupation and reception of the spatial environment
more firmly into the design process. According to him, this can only be achieved if
participation becomes more proactive and meaningful, and he identifies three ways.
These comprise: first, an attitude which implies generosity and curiosity about the
issues, desires and knowledge from both sides; second, relevance –which means
that it is informed by the multiple voices of the insiders; and third, responsibility
on the part of the designers to act for and on behalf of the users.
The approach of involving the end user in the design process has been regarded
as a credible means to the end of creating public spaces with inherent social value,
and this book will further explore the avenues that step away from being an
auditing system that seeks support or consensus for the design project and instead
lead to creative and decisive equality in the design and development of public
spaces that foster and nurture social cohesion.
23
Introduction 23
There is a vested interest in the process of participation and its relation with
placemaking as it can inspire people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public
spaces. The ability of placemaking to strengthen the connection between people
and the places they share is regarded as leading to creative patterns of use of spaces
and helping negotiate physical, cultural and social identities and maximize shared
value (Fleming, 2007). Arefi and Triantafillou (2005) present the ontological
constructs of a place as a set of visual attributes, product, process and meaning. In
doing so, they argue that placemaking is the process whereby collective meaning
is incorporated into physical design. Placemaking is hence an important tool in
community and participatory planning forums, in that it must understand the
contemporary social dynamics of people and place relationship (Cilliers and
Timmermans, 2014). It has been argued that placemaking approaches can negate
the increasing ‘generic-ness’ of new public space designs (Ferguson, 2014). By
involving people in the design process, public spaces can reflect more effectively
the culture and people of a place.
The newly emerging and increasingly popular community and participatory
planning and design approach is the one promoted by the proponents of the
Tactical Urbanism movement, one of the trends referred to above associated
with the current context of austerity. With short-term, low-cost community-
based creative projects, this new type of participatory planning approach has
2
been considered a powerful tool for urban activists and policymakers in the
last decade for their potential to drive lasting improvements and build social
capital among citizens (Lydon and Garcia, 2015). As Lydon and Garcia (2015)
argue, these initiatives offer a way to gain community and political support for
investing in projects; they also inspire people and foster the creation of civic
leaders to shape urban spaces in a novel way. There is sufficient agreement that
the combination of these processes of social engagement, participation and
placemaking are effective approaches to support people to take joint action on
everyday experiences at neighbourhood and city level and in fostering social
cohesion. There are plenty of examples that demonstrate the numerous benefits
of these interventions for cities and their communities, from innovative and
cheaper solutions to more socially engaged and stronger citizenship. However,
there are still many critics that question the validity and effectiveness of such
interventions (Zeiger, 2011; Colomb, 2012; Andres, 2013). Many do not see this
type of urbanism as a panacea for the socio-economic problems and changes
facing cities and communities or for the past failures of participation. One of
the critiques is that, rather than empowering communities, these collaborative
endeavours transfer their power to the more structured and dominant
organizations; another is that they tend to exacerbate NIMBYist feelings, and
therefore promote social cohesion only among the community but not with
outsiders. Despite such critiques, the proponents of Tactical Urbanism continue
to be enthusiastic and defend their ideas as presenting realistic alternative
solutions which are instrumental to keep cities lively and evolving, and to create
24
communities whose interest is to create their collective and gathering spaces

(Finn, 2014; Tardiveau and Mallo, 2014).
This book sets out to further our knowledge on the ways in which contemporary
participatory approaches in public space design enhance or undermine cohesion,
and whether by building on social relationships it leads to open space outcomes that
are more inclusive and socially cohesive. To do so, it adds more insight and rigour
to our understanding of participation with comparative case studies in the context
of the Global South and Global North. It enumerates the successful creation and
management of public spaces, ranging from studies of how the resulting spatial
qualities of community spaces in informal settlements foster social cohesion to
offering a critical overview of the limitations and challenges of the participatory
bottom-up approach. It explores a variety of ways that range from a strategic
approach to execution principles to embed in placemaking and participation
processes values and morals to help create socially sensitive and cohesive spaces.
Reflections from Urban Design Practice

Since the 1980s, the creation of well-designed and used public spaces has become
the top concern of many national and local urban agendas worldwide. Cities have
become increasingly concerned with improving their attractiveness and liveability,
as they have been facing increasing inter-city competition. 24
Alongside this development, and partly as a result of this growing interest in
public space design, urban design has become an area of practice distinct from
architecture and planning. But we still know little about what urban design practice
has to say on these issues that relate public space design with social cohesion.What
can we learn from its challenges, approaches, principles and innovations?
There is a growing recognition that it is important to take stock of the various
approaches and efforts that influence and change the way urban design practitioners
think and work. Design disciplines have a long tradition of innovation through
practice. However, designers have often been theoretically ill-equipped or little
interested in evaluating their built outcomes and their contributions to practice
and theory (Cross, 2001; Forsyth, 2007; Çalışkan, 2012). Hence, it is becoming
very pressing to learn from practitioners, especially from those with a long history
and extensive portfolio of public space projects, to understand more about social
cohesion and its challenges for design practice.
This book addresses this issue by reaching out to urban design practices and
collating reflections on how practice has dealt with the issue of social cohesion.
The academic world has little knowledge on how design practices think and
work, as knowledge exchange between research and industry is restricted owing
to the creative nature of the discipline (Griffiths, 2004). In enabling such transfer
of knowledge, research can gain a better understanding of where new knowledge
is needed, and enhance the prospects of its being applied. Practice can also benefit
by using research to improve built outcomes (Aelbrecht and Stevens, 2015). This
25
Introduction 25
can pave the way to understanding how practice is innovating to inform research
in terms of the design process, design approach and methods.
This book incorporates reflections from Tibbalds, a leading planning and urban
design firm based in London, working in the context of the Global North. Its
introspection and reflection facilitates the gaining of new insights and perspectives,
and paves the way for new understandings in design approach, principles and
processes for future urban design practice.
Book Structure and Chapters

The book is divided into two main parts.The first part consists of chapters engaged
with the design, development and management processes with the aim to uncover
the different interests, actions and agents that initiated, produced and managed the
public spaces in analysis and how these helped to create or sustain social cohesion,
whereas the second includes chapters focused on post-occupancy evaluations of
the public spaces’ social and spatial performance after implementation, with a view
to understand their scope for social inclusion, interaction and cohesion. We have
adopted this structure for the sake of clarity and academic rigour. Our goal was
to achieve a clear and rigorous analysis and comparison of the different contexts,
conceptualisations and theories, practices and outcomes presented by our chapters.
24
Likewise we decided to move beyond generalizations and dichotomizations
between Global North and Global South, to avoid ironing out potential overlaps
that may exist between them. To do so, we have organized our chapters according
to their methodological approaches to the subject –analysis of design processes
and post-occupancy evaluations of built outcomes –as this could allow us to
place more effectively at the centre of the analysis, the urban design, and to have
more focused attention on its role in shaping social cohesion and to identify more
clearly the global trends and debates as well as the national and local specificities,
commonalities and differences of each case study.
We selected fourteen chapters; ten of which are focused on the Global
North, two deal with the Global South, and two address both. Although not all
geographical contexts and countries are represented, we did our best to select the
most representative examples that best illustrate the current public space design
debates, trends and critiques and their impact on social cohesion.
The selected case studies geographically located in the Global North encompass
countries in Western Europe and other countries not located in the west but that
share similar socio-economic and political characteristics, such as North America,
Australia, Taiwan and Turkey. The scope of these chapters is wide-ranging but it
does touch on the core problems and challenges facing this wider geographical
region: namely, the emergence of new types of public spaces in Europe which
are increasingly privately owned and managed, but are nevertheless becoming
important social arenas; the huge gap between theory and practice in participatory
public space design; and the ongoing challenges for achieving social cohesion
26
through public space design in increasingly pluralistic urban settings and under
rising austerity.
Unlike the Global North, the selected Global South case studies are
characterized by their lack of political stability and provision of social welfare and
unregulated economies and planning systems, and for that reason they are well
known for their great social disparities between rich and poor. The geographical
contexts and countries here included are: Colombia in Latin America, Lebanon in
the Middle East and India. Central to the analysis of such contexts are: the debates
surrounding the context of the practice of informal and bottom-up placemaking,
which continue in many countries, particularly in Latin America, to be the only
means to gain access to housing and urban facilities; and how inclusivity and
equity of access are played out in the design and management of public spaces
of cities facing great social disparities and political instability, such as the cases of
Ahmedabad in India and Beirut in Lebanon.
The concluding chapter brings together the results of these investigations and
presents new ideas and theories about the way forward. It adopts an academic
writing approach. It starts by examining the conceptualizations used by our
chapters.Then it focuses on the processes of design, development and management
and their contributions to social cohesion, followed by post-occupancy evaluations
of their social and spatial outcomes, using as an analytical framework the five key
realms identified earlier. At the end, a final analysis is carried out to map and tie in 26
new lessons for public space theory, policy and practice.
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Public Space Design and Social Cohesion: An

Book · December 2018

Patricia Aelbrecht Quentin Stevens

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Patricia Aelbrecht, Quentin Stevens and Bobby Nisha

This book is a first attempt to bring together scholarly knowledge at the

Conceptualizing Public Space, Urban Design and

cohesion individually before inquiring into the interplay of dynamics between

Two traditions of thought can be identified: namely, academic and policy

scale of neighbourhoods and public spaces, as they remain important dimensions

Existing Knowledge at the Intersection between Planning and

another and by Simmel’s observations of people’s ‘blasé attitude’ as a response to

particularly in multicultural societies such as the United States and Australia, an

creating liveable sustainable communities through the promotion of community,

Emerging Ideas on Public Space Design and Social Cohesion

• emerging typologies of public spaces;

Emerging Typologies of Public Spaces

Symbolism and Sense of Belonging

psychological, social and cultural differences. Modernist space became regarded as

Design Attributes that Encourage Social Interaction

Processes of Engagement, Participation and Placemaking

solidarity, common purpose and interdependence. Initiatives such as community

communities whose interest is to create their collective and gathering spaces

Reflections from Urban Design Practice

Book Structure and Chapters

Gans, H. J. (1982) Urban Villagers, New York: Simon & Schuster.

McClelland, D. C. (1985) Human Motivation, Glenview: Scott Foresman.

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