Public parks in Ghent's City life: From expression to emancipation?

Abstract

With three empirically based and theoretically framed case studies, this paper contributes to the understanding of how public spaces, more specifically urban parks, can mediate between different subgroups of society, such as women, seniors, gays and skaters, and how gender related connotations play an important role in these respects. This study draws upon a comparative analysis of three parks in Ghent, Belgium. The elements of analysis are the physical morphology, history, signification and the use by different kinds of park visitors. The article shows a new approach to design of public spaces.

Notes

1. Tannen (1990) quoted in Ritzdorf (1996).

2. This study is drawn upon a masters' thesis for a postgraduate Urbanism and Regional Planning at the Catholic University of Leuven. It was awarded a prize by the Flemish Movement for Space and Planning in November 2002.

3. Julius Fast uses the term ‘non-person’ to indicate that some people are in a certain position for other people ‘non-people’. He gives the following example. “The janitor who empties the waste basket in an office, may not bother to knock when he enters, nor does the occupant of the office mind this intrusion. The janitor is not a real person to him. He's a non-person just as the man in the office is a non-person to the janitor.” (Fast, 1970, p. 60).

4. All the quotes of the interviewees are translated in to English by the author.

5. Els Maesschalck notes that the darkness generates a strong feeling of anonymity and a momentary character. She refers to the ‘one-night-stand’ (Maesschalck, 1999, pp. 180–181).

6. “Compared with 20 years ago, when the most common method of transport by women was walking, the most likely mode of transport for women is now by car, in particular as the car driver. […] Of particular concern is evidence that fear of crime leads many people, particularly younger women, to avoid public transport and walking. It is being suggested that women's greater experience of public transport and walking makes them the potential best advocates of ‘green’ modes of transport and that their traditional caring responsibilities create in women a natural concern for the environment and for the welfare of future generations. However, especially those on low incomes and the elderly constitute one of the few groups among whom there remains scope for major growth in car ownership and there is substantial evidence from recent studies as well as in present trends, that women, no less than men, aspire to car ownership and positively reinforce women's aspirations by the deliberate targeting of women as one of the few parts of the market with continuing growth potential.” (Hill, 1996, pp. 118–119, 125).

7. From that point of view, the park can be compared with Benthams panopticum, a prison with a central tower for the guardian and circular cells around that tower. Because of curtains in the place of the guardian, the prisoners do not know if they are observed. They always have the feeling of being observed (Dubbeld, 2001, pp. 19–20).