Young men of color in privately-owned public spaces: unexpected findings

ABSTRACT

Much has been written about privately-owned public space. Most of the literature focuses on whether these spaces are used, the design of the spaces, and how the spaces can be improved. Researchers have also focused on methods that keep “undesirables”, such as the homeless, from using these spaces. Literature on privately-owned public space (POPS) argues that these spaces are exclusive and undemocratic. However, our research employed an empirical design that centered the voices and experiences of young men of color. What we found was unexpected given that we had taken for granted that these spaces would feel exclusionary. We offer an expansion upon the conclusions of other researchers and argue that the story of corporate public space, race, exclusion, and research into them is more complex than existing literature reveals.

KEYWORDS:

• Privately owned public space
• inclusiveness
• youth of color
• segregation
• privatization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Dr. Cara Kronen is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education and coordinator of Secondary Education Programs at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York. She earned a PhD in Urban Systems from Rutgers University-Newark. She is currently the co-director of the Comprehensive Educator Empowerment Program. Her research areas include urban education, social foundations of education, school choice, and the art of teaching and learning.

Dr. Molly Vollman Makris is Associate Professor of Urban Studies at Guttman Community College, City University of New York. Her areas of research are urban education reform, educational inequities, school choice, and gentrification. She won the American Educational Studies Association (AESA) Critics’ Choice Book Award and the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance Book Award in 2016 for Public Housing and School Choice in a Gentrified City: Youth Experiences of Uneven Opportunity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Her next book, Gentrification Down the Shore (Rutgers University Press), co-authored with Mary Gatta, will come out in 2020.

Te-Sheng Huang has a Ph.D., in Urban Systems from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in Architecture from Cheng Kung University. He has conducted research on interior privately owned public spaces in New York. After completing his Ph.D., he taught in the School of Architecture at Feng Chia University and opened an architectural firm that focused on public space, urban design, and housing. He now serves in the Baltimore Country Department of Planning.

Notes

1 Admittedly, it remains to be seen what would actually occur if these spaces began to be heavily used by this population in large numbers.