Neoliberal Urbanism – Public Space, Liberty, Equality, and Community

Public space is premised on the free and equal access of citizens but its ‘order’ is always a precarious balance between homogeneity and diversity, freedom and oppression, superficial contact and deeper engagement. How is this balance tested and shifted by neoliberal urbanism when the city is both a site and agent in the process? Is the idea of public space still tenable with the increasing social polarization and diversification of citizens? How is the city shaped by commercialization and privatization, which are often blamed as the two main, related trends responsible for the recent transformation, or even alleged decline of public space? I argue in a few paradigmatic examples that we gain a less one-sided understanding of this transformation when it is viewed through an analytical lens that focuses on the reconfiguration of the modern republican matrix of liberty, equality and community, in which the ideal as well as critique of public space have historically been embedded.