300327 Transformations of Urban Public Space in Europe (S) (WiSe 2012/2013)

A present-day city is the space that concentrates economic, political and cultural resources and therefore attracts and accommodates people and groups with different social backgrounds and cultural identities. This space is a constantly changing mosaic of actors, spatial patters, narratives, and practices. One of the necessary conditions of forming the ideology of the city that would encourage its openness to strangers, toleration of differences and the general access to various opportunities of political and social life is the development of public spaces and places. Those become the meeting-points of urban publics who learn about alternative political discourses and lifestyles through casual and unpredictable interactions.
However, the public space of contemporary European cities experiences a sharp crisis. Does public space really die away with the ongoing privatization of urban territories and the emergence of new forms of social exclusion? What happens to public spaces in Russia where several decades of totalitarian regime held back the development of public communication? Where are the citizens expected to meet, negotiate and protest when public spaces are not open and generally accessible anymore? Are there any chances for the city-dwellers to contest the new repressive forms of control over urban territories and reclaim their right to the city? We shall try to answer these questions through reading some topical texts by urban researchers (I. Young, L. Lofland, S. Zukin, D. Mitchell) and considering a set of case-studies carried out both in Western Europe and Russia.