Typically, these ideas have appeared in empirical research as examinations of the ways that the openness and accessibility – that is, the democracy – of public space have been hampered by the exercise of political power, leading to the exclusion or domination of others. A recent collection of readings edited by Low and Smith (2000) demonstrates this by its inclusion of
discussions of how private interests dominate the maintenance of the public space and sphere, how fear is strategically
deployed to shape the public environment, and how undesirable individuals are scrubbed from the public landscape