Dunn, N. and Brook, R., 2009.

The City and The Control of Space

This paper is concerned with the relationship between the city and space [public and private]. More specifically, it will focus on how the city and ownership of space is demarcated, enclosed and implied. The roles of governance and security upon civic, urban and personal space call into question the true nature of that which we consider public. Frequently the design of public space is concerned with the control of that space, rather than its appropriation, [de-re-mis]use and legitimate occupation. Increasingly it is the proximity of digital and real space that is testing these realities and challenging the convention of behavioural patterns established incrementally by the accumulation of policy and technological change during the last twenty years. The question of what constitutes community, networked and residual space is of concern here as are devices of appropriation, enclosure, severance, fragmentation, and cultural identification of space.