Management and publicness of public space: changes and challenges

Abstract

Public space has always been capable of conferring quality to the urban environment, being the basis of the urban structure, offering material support for communal life, representing civic and religious powers and values, and the place of social gathering where it is possible to encounter the unexpected. In a city that does not expand but regenerates itself, the public space has taken on a new role in the practices of urban transformation, both in the more ordinary and small ones and in the larger ones. Current contingencies - the growing uncertainty due to climate change, pandemic crises, migration, wars, and their effects on economic and geopolitical conditions - represent the backgrounds and, in many cases, the amplifiers of ongoing dynamics that also affect public space.

The case of Milan is an interesting field of observation from this point of view. It makes it possible to reflect on the ways and intensity with which public space has changed its role and meaning in the city on the new questions it poses to city government. Ultimately, it is a testing ground for many changes in the 'game'.

Two aspects serve as background and driving forces for change.

The first aspect concerns the progressive scarcity of resources available to the public administration in the ordinary city management. This scarcity affects economic and human resources and skills and is increasingly driving the outsourcing of services and the management  (Carmona, 2008; Marcuse, 2014). The second concerns the collaborative practices that the public administration shares with the private or third-sector actors. That has enabled many fertile areas of bottom-up experimentations, from the management of common goods to forms of participatory budgets, from community gardens to various participatory practices. At the same time, it has facilitated the spread of public-private partnerships and the participation of private individuals - developers and managers - in public space management (London Assembly, 2011; de Magalhães, Freire Trigo, 2017). Both aspects highlight a different way of approaching the governance of public space, with potential and criticalities.

These aspects are found in two scales of intervention, clearly visible in some Milanese experiences.

1. At the scale of minute and diffuse interventions, the case of Piazze Aperte is emblematic. It is an intervention program that, since 2018, has modified about 40 Milanese public spaces with the modalities of tactical urbanism and, thus, with low-cost interventions, the involvement of citizens in associated forms. In those same years, following the pandemic restrictions, the use of public space changed thanks to the public land occupation permits given to economic operators. All this changed the public space with temporary elements introducing new rules and procedures in the realization processes.
2. In the major urban transformation projects affecting Milan, the role of public space is crucial. Public spaces or spaces for public use are managed by private actors who maintain them because their quality guarantees the value of investments. Still, they pose some questions regarding management and maintenance of the publicness.

The paper will reflect on how the design and management of public space have changed and highlight the challenges to face to ensure its publicness.