This paper sets out a series of normative principles for planners and others to use when planning for and regulating public space design and management. Based on an exhaustive examination of public...

This paper explores the link between the quality of the built environment and its value, in health, social, economic and environmental terms. This is theorized as ‘place value’ which, alongside ‘place quality’, is conceptualized as existing within a virtuous loop in which quality dictates value and value defines quality. To test this, a systematic review brought together wide-ranging international research evidence. The work confirmed a range of definitive associations between the quality of place and its place derived value. It also makes a clear link back from the evidence on place value to the sorts of qualities that enhance or detract from that value. These, in turn, define the constituent elements of place quality.

Drawing on empirical research in London, this paper examines how public spaces in the contemporary city are shaped. Together, the ‘contexts’, ‘processes’ and ‘power relationships’ that are revealed represent an integrated framework in the form of a journey through time during which contemporary public space—exemplified in this paper through the case of public space in London—is moulded. Extrapolating to the larger field of urban design, the discussion advances a theory of the urban design process as a place-shaping continuum. This urban design (or place-shaping) process, in all its complexity and variety, has the potential to anchor the field of urban design, offering a core for intellectual enquiry and policy/practice innovation. To situate this, the paper begins with a brief examination of urban design as a subject for investigation.

There are a series of discrete but related critiques of the contemporary public space situation, and it was these that the first part of this paper identified and organized. These drew on different scholarly traditions to highlight the key tensions at the heart of the contemporary public space debate. It revealed that critiques of public space could broadly be placed into two camps: those who argue that public space is over-managed, and those who argue that it is under-managed. This second part of the paper begins by arguing that both over and under-management critiques result in the same end, a homogenization of public space, although these outcomes may not be as stark as many of the critics would have us believe. What is clear is that the critiques reveal a range of public space types and means of classification. These are used in a final section of this paper to suggest a new typology of public space, one based on how public space is managed.

This two-part paper draws upon different scholarly traditions to highlight the key tensions at the heart of the contemporary public space debate. Critiques of public space can broadly be placed into two camps, those who argue that public space is over-managed, and those who argue that it is under-managed. This over-simplifies a complex discourse on public space that this paper aims to unpack, but nevertheless provides a useful lens through which to view the critiques. In fact there are a series of discrete but related critiques of the contemporary public space situation, and it is these that the first part of this paper identifies and organizes. In so doing it also reveals a range of public space types that are used in the second part of the paper to suggest a new typology of public space.

The global public spaces literature has been critical of contemporary manifestations of public space on a number of grounds. This article reports on a research project that attempted to gauge the validity of these critiques through an examination of new and regenerated public spaces in London. The article introduces the dominant critiques around public space before outlining the mixed-methods approach used to interrogate them. The key findings from this work are summarised before the nature of contemporary public space is re-theorised in a more avowedly positive and pragmatic manner than is often the case, one that celebrates a return of a public spaces paradigm through tentatively advancing a new narrative and set of normative principles for public space generation. The work concludes that a more balanced view of public space is required, one that recognises the multiple complex types, roles and audiences for public spaces in cities today.