Public Space Blog

The two essays, "Shopping for Pleasure: Malls, Power, and Resistance" by Fiske, and "Fortress Los Angeles: The Militarization of Urban Space," by Davis adress the idea of public space and give specific examples of space the general public occupies, and what the officials response to this occupation is. The Fiske's essay the public he writes about are the "unemployed youth" who frequent shopping malls, not to shop, but rather to hang out and window shop. He compares this to a religion, where the ritual of going to the mall is comparable to attneding church. He also compares the mall visitors to a war. The authorities, shop owners and security guards are powerless against the "invaders," and can only get rid of them for engaging in illegal activity, such as underage drinking. This contrasts Davis's article which has homeless people being kicked of the streets (a public area) for loitering. Davis's article is more harsh than Fiske's. It shows how Los Angeles is being redesigned to gear different areas of the city toward specific groups of people.
Both authors show the value of public space, something needed and wanted, but being taken over by certain groups of the public, namely lower class. The malls are being taken over by the unemployed youth, not the comsumers who actually purchase and affect the economy. The public street of Los Angeles are being over run by drug dealers, homeless, local goods peddlers, and other loiterers, and all are being rounded up as criminals, regardless of whether they break the law or not.
The assumptions made about public space is that it is being wasted on the public and thatthe elite public will make better use of the space, and so the general public, the youths, and loiterers, should be relocated. The problem is that this is not making "public space" truly public, really it is privatizing the space for the elite.