The High Line and the ideal of democratic public space

ABSTRACT

This study examines New York’s internationally acclaimed High Line with regard to the democratic ideal of urban parks as places of social mixing among diverse groups in the city. Observational surveys were conducted to assess the levels of racial/ethnic diversity among visitors to the High Line and four other Manhattan parks, and census data were collected on the race/ethnicity of residents in surrounding neighborhoods, the borough of Manhattan, and New York City. The data show that the High Line crowd is overwhelmingly White, to a degree that is far out of line with the racial/ethnic demographics of the borough and city, that the level of racial homogeneity significantly exceeds that of other comparable parks, and that the lack of diversity cannot be explained by neighborhood composition. The author concludes that the High Line is failing as a democratic public space and draws on the work of political scientist E. E. Schattschneider to assert the importance of diversity in public spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Public space
• High Line
• New York City
• parks

Acknowledgments

The author is very grateful to Christopher Aurelio Freire and Sophie Simon for their invaluable assistance with the field research, and to Valmont Reichl for his invaluable assistance with preliminary field research. The author also wishes to thank Urban Geography’s anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful feedback and its editor Kevin Ward for his guidance and support; all contributed to a much improved paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.