Routledge Handbook of Urban Public Space

Karen A. Franck is Professor Emerita from the Hillier College of Architecture and Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey. While teaching graduate and undergraduate students there, she also served as Director of the Joint Ph.D. Program in Urban Systems sponsored by NJIT and Rutgers-Newark. She took particular pleasure in advising Ph.D. students. Research conducted by many of them appears in this handbook. Karen’s own research interests have spanned several topics: alternative housing (New Households, New Housing, 1989), building and place types (Ordering Space, 1994) and the design process (Architecture from the Inside Out, 2007 and Design through Dialogue, 2010). She pursued her interest in public space with Loose Space (2007), Memorials as Spaces of Engagement (2015) and this volume. Karen holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Psychology from the City University of New York. Te-Sheng Huang has been working in the Baltimore County Department of Planning in Towson, Maryland since 2020. He is now the Lead Planner of the Eastern Sector, one of the three sectors of the county. From 2014 to 2017, he was an assistant professor in the School of Architecture at Feng Chia University in Taiwan. He also ran a small architectural firm and was responsible for the design of a pavilion in Taichung Folklore Park and the revitalization of the Rainbow Village in Taichung City. Te-Sheng holds a master’s degree in Architecture from Cheng Kung University in Taiwan and a Ph.D. in Urban Systems from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers-Newark. For his dissertation, Te-Sheng studied the design, management and use of privately owned public spaces in New York City, finding that they are not as exclusive as commonly believed.

1. Introduction: The Use, Design and Management of Urban Public Space

Karen A. Franck and Te-Sheng Huang

Part I: Emerging Types of Public Spaces

2. Ecological Restoration Parks: An Emerging Type of Public Space in China

Han Yan

3. City Beaches: Enlivening Marginal Spaces in Germany

Quentin Stevens

4. Pedestrian Plazas: A New Type of Neighborhood Space in New York City

Hanife Vardi-Topal

Part II: Recreation

5. New Opportunities for Women’s Recreation in Tripoli, Libya

Fathia Elmenghawi

6. Cruising in Urban Parks: Gay Intimacy in Public Space in New York and Boston

John Bezemes

7. Private Sound Environments in Urban Public Space: Headphone Use in Parks in New York

Chathurthi S. De Silva

8. Parkour: Loosening Public Urban Space in Finland

Lieven Ameel and Sirpa Tani

Part III: Commerce

9. What Commerce Can Do: The Case of Streets in the US

Vikas Mehta

10. Little Damascus: A Thriving Commercial Passageway in Sixth of October City, Egypt

Amira Mostafa Badran

11. Using and Negotiating Public Space: Street Vending in Taiwan

Te-Sheng Huang

12. Getting a Spot on the Street: Street Vendors’ Access to Public Space in Bogotá, Colombia

Ana Maria Vargas

13. Food Truck Rallies: Communal Eating in Public Space in the U.S.

John Jones

Part IV: Protest

14. The Life and Death of Tahrir Square: From Protest Platform to Roundabout

Mariam Abdelazim

15. City of Protest: From Exterior to Interior Public Space in Hong Kong

Tom Verebes

16. Displaying and Contesting State Power: The Story of Taksim Square and Gezi Park, Istanbul

Zehra Betul Atasoy

Part V: Living

17. Inhabiting the City without Shelter in Santa Cruz, California

Cory Parker

18. Living on the Streets of Kinshasa, Democratic Repulic of Congo

Kristien Geenen

19. Using Public Space to Escape Violence and Social Exclusion in São Paulo, Brazil

Daniel Jupp Kina and Lorraine van Blerk

Part VI: Celebration

20. Parades in Manhattan: Transforming Public Space

Karen A. Franck

21. Spaces and Sound: Celebrating and Protesting in Berlin

Banu Çiçek Tülü

22. Joining the Party in Downtown Brooklyn

Maryam Hosseini

Part VII: Research Methods for Studying Public Space

23. Recording Diverse Uses of a City’s Public Spaces

Sverre Bjerkeset anad Jonny Aspen

24. Using Archival Sources to Study Mass Behavior in Public Space

Johann Sagan

25. What is the Question? Answer the Question.

Karen A. Franck and Te-Sheng Huang