Focusing on urban public spaces, defined as ‘all areas that are
open and accessible to all members of the public in a society, in
principle though not necessarily in practice’ (Orum and Neal,
2010: p. 1), this review outlines three major perspectives on
public space (see Table 1).
(a) The legal–economic perspective seeks to answer the most
concrete questions about public space (what is it and who
pays for it?), thereby laying the definitional and institutional
groundwork for other enquiries.
(b) The socio-spatial perspective takes the existence of public
space for granted and is more concerned with questions of
design and application: what does it look like and how is it
used?
(c) The political perspective asks about public space’s role in
democracy, both abstractly as a site for discursive activities
and concretely as a site of exclusion or empowerment.