The End of Public Space in the Latin American City? (proceedings), March 4-5, 2004

This Research Workshop proposes to explore controversial debates about the extent to which the public space, and access to it, is being eroded in contemporary Latin American cities. Participants will be invited to discuss if or how public spaces –interpreted broadly -- are being eroded or reshaped by neo-liberalism, by the progressive withdrawal of the state from traditional arenas of social policy with or without replacement by civil organisations, by changes to consumption patterns, planning policies or globalisation. From various disciplinary and research perspectives, participants will discuss the extent, pace and driving forces that shape access to spaces that were, in the past, arguably more truly “public” (or were they?). Such spaces include: plazas and parks; the street and thoroughfares; the marketplace (malls and shopping districts); transport systems; public housing and public education; and spaces of entertainment and recreation. Examined more broadly, public space is being recast as an outcome of the declining role of the state, and the pervasive shift from public to private provision of social goods. As such, new axes of social exclusion are becoming entrenched, some elements of which are clearly spatial, while others are less obvious.