Zoning restrictions are one of the primary legal devices used to shape the form of public space, but their consequences can have implications on how the space is actually used. Simultaneously approaching public space from both legal–economic and sociospatial perspectives, Smithsimon (2008) asks why New York’s bonus plazas – an artefact of zoning laws that allow the construction of taller buildings in exchange for street-level public space – tend to be unused, unwelcoming, barren spaces. The economic explanation that developers ‘do the minimum’ required by zoning laws is a suggestion, but Smithsimon offers a more compelling socio-spatial explanation: that developers actively sought designs that would discourage people from lingering. A similar phenomenon is now also unfolding in San Francisco