A question we have to ask is how town planners have responded to these trends? This is the Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco, which was heavily used by skateboarders until recently. A rounded ledge has been added that is designed to be unskateable. In the same city, the entrance to Golden Gate Park apparently used to be filled with drug dealers. Every detail of the design is intended to deter some form of behaviour. The handrail is too high to sit on. The stairs are shaped to discourage sitting, the pillars are made of a textured slate that is unattractive to graffiti artists. The architect pointed out that these deterrents created an "airtight network" that "filtered out unintended users", and controlled the behaviour of selected users. This is alarming language to be using in connection with public space
In response to these creative forms of use, authorities are incorporating disciplinary tactics into the design of public space so that they actually convey a sense of private property and communicate to "undesirables" that they may be thrown out at any moment. This seems to contravene the main definition of public space - that it is accessible to all individuals. There are a host of undesirable users: drunks and tramps; pamphleteers; protestors; street performers; people dipping their feet in fountains; people who just stand and talk to themselves, and people who fed the pigeons. But they all have a right to use public spaces.
Space is further ordered by surveillance. Most public spaces are under surveillance by CCTV. This is a controversial issue. The argument for it is that it prevents crime by acting as a deterrent to criminals, but it is debatable how effective it actually is. James Bulger's abduction was captured on film, but that didn't prevent it. It can really only be instrumental in identifying criminals after the fact. In that respect it is similar to speed cameras. On the other hand, it is argued that surveillance is an infringement of our civil libertities, keeping the entire population under constant suspicion. The pictures are often sold to TV companies, who make programmes about inner-city crime and binge-drinking - so we can sit in the private space of the home and watch public spaces, spying on ourselves.
In the 50s television began to blur the distinction between public and private space. Domestic interiors were revealed in TV shows and advertisements, encouraging competitiveness in consumption. The ultimate example is reality TV shows like Big Brother. Television poses problems for the conceptualisation of public and private space. Can we inhabit these spaces just by watching them? It is just a visual image, but the gaze gives us power (in Big Brother we also have the power to evict people). The title refers to George Orwell's novel 1984 and its vision of a nightmarish future. This is the same principle as the panopticon, a supremely rational design for a prison devised by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. It was analysed by Foucault in his book Discipline and Punish. All the cells face inwards to a central tower. The prisoners can be seen, but they can't see into the tower. It works by the threat of surveillance: you don't know if you're being watched or not. In public space, do we modify our behaviour because of the potential of surveillance? The concept seems very Modernist, but it has become important in the current Post Modern age and uses modern technology. Public space has become a dimension of visual culture.
