The Commodification of Public Spaces and their Potential for Urban Transformation and Inclusion

BENVGBU1: Transforming Local Areas: Urban Design for Development The Commodification of Public Spaces and their Potential for Urban Transformation and Inclusion Essay Question: What makes a city good?

Candidate number: NKDS5 Submission Date: December 1st/ 2016 Number of words: 2995

Introduction

The discussion about what we want and expect from our cities, and what must be done to achieve such aspirations involves a series of factors and must consider the different contexts in which these are interweaved. The complex relations between people and the built environment must be accessed, examining how these echo into the citizen’s everyday life in all spheres of the society, the social, political, economic and cultural. To analyse these intricacies and respond to the question of what makes a city good, this essay will explore the dialectical relations that shape the citizen’s experiences in the public spaces, through the lenses of social justice (Harvey, 1988) and the social production of space (Lefebvre, 1991).

The choice to investigate these public areas, is because they reflect the city’s power mechanisms and social structures, “public spaces mirror the complexities of urban society” (Madanipour, 2010:1). Firstly, the essay will present a brief explanation of the different interpretations of public spaces in history. Then, how the concepts of social justice and production of space relate with each other and their importance to achieve the ‘good city’. In pursuance of illustrating the arguments of this thesis, the “Porto Maravilha” project, in Rio de Janeiro, specifically the requalification of “Mauá” square, re-designed as part of the city’s Olympics preparation, will be deployed. To conclude that the good city can only be achieved with the empowerment of the community and their participation in the urban decision making.

Public spaces through history

Public spaces have always occupied an important role in the history of cities around the world.

Since the Greek agora and Roman forums to the markets squares in medieval times, they recurrently had a crucial part in the urban life for being places for either political discussion, economic trades and/ or cultural and social encounters (Madanipour, 2010:6). In general, spaces for the society to interact in different manners, consequently embedded in social and geographical importance within the city.

With the growth of the modern cities, however, the public spaces started to lose their importance, “public spaces have multiplied and expanded, but have also become more

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impersonal, losing many of their layers of significance” (Madanipour, 2010:5). In the contemporary cities, their role once again has changed. Whilst their social importance among the citizens continues to exist, now they are considered by the state and the private sector as an economic commodity. They are consequently produced to enhance the value of neighbourhoods, therefore increasing their profit in the real estate market.

One of the results of such mechanism is the phenomenon of gentrification, that is responsible for changing the character of the area, increasing the value of rents and public services and causing local people to be displaced, usually to neighbourhoods further away from the city centres. As explained by Madanipour, “the association of public space creation and high-value consumption inevitably leads to gentrification, in which one group of people and activities are replaced by another” (2010:7).

From that brief reflection, is possible to apprehend that the changes that befall the character of public spaces are an effect of the changes overtaking the different spheres of urban society on a much broader perception. In that sense, the possibility of undertaking the opposite direction and produce meaningful improvements in society - strengthening of social interaction between citizens, enhancing the dwellers` political power and promoting cultural expansion - through the production of accessible, diverse and inclusive public spaces, is going to be contemplated.

As Edward Soja stated, “For some the essential starting point in the search for spatial justice is the vigilant defense of public space against the forces of commodification, privatisation, and state interference” (Soja, 2010:45).

Production of Public Space as a tool for citizen’s empowerment and social justice

What are the mechanisms, then, that are necessary to fulfil the aspiration of creating accessible, diverse and inclusive public spaces? Lefebvre, in The Production of Space, states that the urban spatial structure is produced by social relations, in different contexts and times. “Social space is a (social) product … the space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action; that in addition to being a means of production it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power” (Lefebvre, 1991:26). Considering that statement, is possible to verify a shift in the importance of mechanisms concerning space, from the concrete spatial results per se, to their production. The space, therefore, is not only shaped by the social, economic and 2

political interactions that exist in the city, but its production is also responsible for maintaining or altering the power structures of the society.

Keeping in mind that the public spaces represent the reflection of the city’s power structure, is possible to transfer that reasoning to the production of public spaces. In practical terms, the stakeholders responsible for the production of the public space, will have the power over it, not only for its final result - shape, design, function - but since the beginning of the process, deciding, therefore, who will be represented in that space and whose rights that space will be a representation of. In short, they will be responsible for promoting the society’s inclusion or exclusion in such process and in its spatial result.

In that sense, when we analyse the world’s tendency in transforming urban design in a tool to enhance profit and capital accumulation, creating landscapes appealing to the consumer and more controlled environments (Mitchell, 2003), is easy to visualise how the mechanisms of production of space are reflecting the urban realm. If the space is being produced by the private market, with the only preoccupation in beautifying the city and for the valorisation that such space could generate, disregarding the objective social needs, then it will not be a representation of the citizen’s values and needs. Would not be considered accessible, therefore, which is the most important feature that a public space should embrace; “without being accessible, a place cannot become public. If public open spaces are conceived as enclosed particular places with fixed identity, their flexibility and inclusiveness will be undermined, and so will their accessibility” (Madanipour, 2010:8).

The claim for an inclusive public space represents the pursuit for social justice. David Harvey’s concept of social justice relates to Lefebvre’s production of space in the logic that is also considered as a product of human practice, “I move from a predisposition to regard social justice as a matter of eternal justice and morality to regard it as something contingent upon the social processes operating in society as a whole” (Harvey, 1988:15).

Trying to further understand the concept of social justice and how it can be enhanced by the citizen’s production of public space, we turn to Iris Young`s idea that “justice should refer not only to distribution, but also to the institutional conditions necessary for the development and exercise of individual capacities and collective communication and cooperation. Under this conception of justice, injustice refers primarily to two forms of disabling constraints, oppression and domination. While these constraints include distributive patterns, they also involve matters that cannot easily be assimilated to the logic of distribution: decision-making 3

procedures, division of labour, and culture” (Young, 2011:39). While she is referring to oppressed groups in the American society, the concept can be transferred to most societies and to the relations in the urban spatiality. The association of these concepts to the production of public spaces, relates to the power and domination that result from such production, as argued

by Lefebvre. Using other terms, Young is also talking about the power structures that exists in the society and how they are responsible for the maintenance of injustices, especially for particular groups and minorities.

Using Lefebvre’s spatial triad1 as a tool, this thesis would argue that, to make public spaces capable of fostering the exercise of individual capacities, collective communication and cooperation, the knowledge necessary to produce them should be formed from the ‘spatial practice’, that is, the way the space and its networks are ‘perceived’ by the citizens, the ‘material dimension of social activity and interaction’. As it was argued by David Harvey, “any general theory of the city must somehow relate the social processes in the city to the spatial form which the city assumes” (Harvey, 1988:23).

In the current urban structure, the public spaces are produced by the knowledge formed in the ‘representations of space’, which is supposed to be the realm of “conceptualised space, the space of scientists, planners, urbanists … all of whom identify what is lived and what is perceived with what is conceived.” (Lefebvre, 1991:38). Those that are considered as experts, however, are following the capitalist market’s logics of commercialisation of spaces.

Consequently, those spaces that are being created will not represent the society’s ‘spatial practice’, producing exclusion in places that are not meant (in the private sector view) to be ‘lived’ by all. The production of public spaces, thus, can either be a perfect tool for including the citizen in the process of decision making and culture promotion, or serve the opposite objective, and exclude them from all kinds of power.

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Lefebvre’s (spatial and conceptional) triad is a theory used to analyse the different representations of space.

Spatial Practice (perceived) – “which embraces production and reproduction, and the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each social formation” (Lefebvre, 1991:33) Representations of Space (conceived) – “conceptualised space, the space of scientists, planners, urbanists...” (ibid:38) Spaces of Representation (lived) – “space as directly lived through its associated images and symbols, and hence the space of ‘inhabitants’ and ‘users’…” (ibid:38)

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Case study Porto Maravilha – commodification of local memory and history

As an example of a redevelopment that was conducted by the private sector, and represents the complete exclusion of the local dwellers in the process, this essay will study the Porto Maravilha project, in Rio de Janeiro.

The city of Rio de Janeiro was, in August 2016, the host of the biggest sport event in the world: The Summer Olympics. In order to prepare for the event, the city went through a series of transformations. One of the biggest projects, representative of the requalification that took place, was the Porto Maravilha project. It is localised in the city centre, in an area corresponding to five million square meters (one third of the city centre), that includes three entire neighbourhoods – Santo Cristo, Gamboa and Saúde – as well as the first favelas of the city and parts of São Cristovão, Centro, Caju and Cidade Nova.

The decision to study this particular case was due, primarily, to the importance that this region has for the city. Furthermore, because it represents, in one project, the mechanisms that were being employed across the city in all the redevelopments. Regardless its size, the port was, until the last urban census (year 2010), the area with the lowest population rates in the municipality.

It has been analysed by city experts for more than 30 years, due to its potential for growth and its proximity to the majority of job offers. Consequently, there are many studies for it since then.

The urbanists main aim was usually to invert the current occupation pattern, common in many city centres - high people circulation during work hours and empty streets during the night – by increasing the number of dwellers and social housing. (Belisário, A. 2016). Besides that, the area has an important role in the city’s history, especially for African descendants, since it was the main entrance for slaves in the XIX century and where the first slum in the city was established. Until today, many public spaces of the area, as Cais do Valongo, Pedra do Sal and Largo São Francisco da Prainha, are places where the African culture is celebrated and resistance movements are held.

The current project, formulated and implemented by a partnership between construction companies and the municipality, however, didn’t take into consideration the current social structure and local history. Big urban infrastructure modifications (demolition of Perimeter Viaduct, tunnel constructions and implementation of a new public transport system – Light 5

Rail Vehicle) and corporative buildings (many of them designed by international architecture practices) were prioritised over the necessities of the local population.

One of the most important areas, for the investors, in this requalification was the Mauá Square, for being ‘the entrance port of the city’, as stated by the city mayor at that time, Eduardo Paes.

In this simple declaration, the mayor displays who is being prioritised in the project. If the importance of a public space derives for it being an ‘entrance’, it is clear that there is no acknowledgement of who already lives in the city, which means that the local inhabitants are being left aside from the process and its result.

With the intent of including Rio de Janeiro in the tendency of the innovative global cities, that is causing the homogenisation of public spaces around the world, the square project was inspired in other international requalification of harbour areas, as in Barcelona. The purpose, as stated by Eduardo Paes was to transform “their centenary and decaying harbour areas – that became obsolete due to the speed with which the techniques and procedures for the production of wealth have evolved – into dynamic centres that irradiate economic, social and cultural development”. But for whom is that development?

While Mauá square is the main postcard of the requalification project, the other public spaces in the port area, as Cais do Valongo, Pedra do Sal and Largo São Francisco da Prainha were neglected from any kind of improvements. Yet, these places, that have a major significance for the local community, were only incorporated in the “African Heritage Circuit” of the area.

It is important to observe that, while that initiative appears to be a way to value the black population culture, those people were exactly the ones evicted from the area for the urbanisation process in the local slums and continue to be displaced due the valorisation of the neighbourhood. In the discourses made by the Porto Maravilha consortium, the symbolic forms, local tradition, history, identity and culture become currency: “the phenomenon described is the taken of spaces to establish a new logic. In that process, what is tradition becomes touristic, what is cultural becomes thoughtless leisure, what is critical consciousness of memory becomes consumption, what is social becomes visual, the exception becomes the

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rule, the urbanism becomes business, and in the climax of the transformations, what is public becomes private” 2 (Xavier, 2012:161).

In all these mechanisms, we return to the previous discussed concepts of commodification of space in order to prioritise the profit of a certain social agent. Is easy to apprehend, hence, how the urban spatiality acts both as a result of the political, economic and social structures of the city and as a tool to maintain this status quo. As it was argued by David Harvey, “we must relate social behaviour to the way in which the city assumes a certain geography, a certain spatial form. We must recognize then once a particular spatial form is created it tends to institutionalise and, in some respects, to determine the future development of social process” (Harvey, 1988:27).

Figure 1: Mauá Square (Marcia Rosa, 2015)

The enormous redevelopment which the port area went through was an amazing opportunity to make a meaningful improvement in the lives of local dwellers. The production of public spaces is not an easy task, “as the range of actors and interests in urban development varies widely, and places have different dimensions and functions, creating public spaces becomes a complex and multidimensional process.” (Madanipour, 2010:11). However, it can be accomplished, if, as a first step, it acknowledges the needs and necessities of the community, and incorporates the local inhabitants in the process of production of space.

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My personal translation of: Oliveira Xavier, P. (2013) Do Porto ao Porto Maravilha: considerações sobre os

discursos que (re) criam a cidade.

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In the case of the port area in Rio de Janeiro, the local community was left aside from the entire project. They have been, however, since the beginning of the process, fighting for their rights, with the support of activists, to try stop the evictions and displacements. At a superficial glance, they weren’t successful, as they couldn’t stop the project from being implemented as it was designed by the private sector. Nevertheless, going deeper in the analysis, we find they have been successful in smaller accomplishments.

For example, the maintenance and formalisation of the local vendors (ambulantes), that in the beginning were also driven away from the square. Another case where we can witness an appropriation of the square space by the community, is with the local children that use the new connection with the water to dive in the Guanabara bay. In the first moment, they were reprehended by the police and the order shock, that falsely informed it was a no swimming area, but soon after they were liberated again. Those initiatives show the effort that is being made by the local population to invert the current structure and regain their access to the space.

Children playing in the Mauá Square Pier (Ale Silva, Jornal do Brasil, 2015)

Conclusion The aim of this essay was to investigate the processes involved in the production of public spaces as a first step to fully comprehend the complex relations and structures that shape the city’s spatiality, therefore understand and suggest what makes a city good. Using Lefebvre’s and Harvey’s concepts, the first inference is that being actively involved in the production of space is a synonym of power, therefore maintaining or inverting the social structures in the society. Additionally, connecting the analysis of Porto Maravilha with the capitalist tendency of commodification of public space, and expanding it to an international scale, is clear that the mechanisms that are being used to produce the public spaces rejects community participation.

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The changes that need to be addressed, then, must come from the citizens themselves, challenging the current urban structures and reclaiming their power to be an active agent in the city.

From there, the conclusion is that a good city should be a spatial representation of the needs and aspirations of the different actors in society. This utopian vision relies on the equality of the relations between them. Considering that those relations are unbalanced in the present, is important to create mechanisms to empower the citizens, including them in the co-designing public spaces and reinforcing their capacities in the decision-making processes that produce the city, therefore, following a path for social justice and inclusion.

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References:

Belisário, A. (2016) A outra história do Porto Maravilha. Available at: http://apublica.org/2016/08/a-outra-historia-do-portomaravilha/#http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8131/tde-11012016-145212/pt-br.php (Accessed: 26 November 2016).

Elden, S. (2008) ‘There is a politics of space because space is political Henri Lefebvre and the production of space’, 10(2), pp. 101–116.

Gaffikin, F., Mceldowney, M. and Sterrett, K. (2010) ‘Creating shared public space in the contested city: The role of urban design’, Journal of Urban Design, 15(4), pp. 493–513. doi: 10.1080/13574809.2010.502338.

Galiza, H. (2015) O Porto Maravilha e a política de reabilitação de áreas centrais. Available at: https://raquelrolnik.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/o-porto-maravilha-e-a-politica-dereabilitacao-de-areas-centrais/ (Accessed: 20 November 2016).

Harvey, D. (1988a) ‘Social Justice and Spatial Systems’, in Social justice and the city.

Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 96–116.

Harvey, D. (1988b) ‘Social Processes and Spatial Form: The Conceptual Problems of Urban Planning’, in Social justice and the city. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, .

Harvey, D. (2013) ‘The Creation of Urban Commons’, in Rebel cities: From the right to the city to the urban revolution. New York: Verso Books, pp. 67–89.

Lefebvre, H. (1991a) ‘Plan of the Present Work’, in The production of space. Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 1–67.

Lefebvre, H. (1991b) ‘Social Space’, in The production of space. Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 68–168.

Lefebvre, H. (1995) ‘The right to the city’, in Kofman, E. and LeBas, E. (eds.) Writings on cities. Cambridge, Mass, USA: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 147–159.

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Lima Carlos, C.A. (2012) Um olhar crítico à zona portuária do Río de Janeiro. Available at: https://portomaravilhaparaquem.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/uma-olhar-critico-a-zonaportuaria-do-rio-de-janeiro/ (Accessed: 26 November 2016).

Madanipour, A. (ed.) (2009) Whose public space? International case studies in urban design and development. London, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis.

Marcuse, P. (2009) Spatial justice: Derivative but causal of social injustice. Available at: http://www.jssj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/JSSJ1-4en2.pdf (Accessed: 24 November 2016).

Mitchell, D. (2003) ‘The End of Public Space? People’s Park, the Public and the Right to the City’, in The right to the city: Social justice and the fight for public space. New York: Guilford Publications, pp. 118–160.

Mumford, L. (2012) City reader. Available at: http://www.polsci.chula.ac.th/pitch/urbpol13/lm.pdf (Accessed: 6 November 2016).

Oliveira Xavier, P. (2013) Do Porto ao Porto Maravilha: considerações sobre os discursos que (re)criam a cidade. Available at: http://objdig.ufrj.br/42/teses/789786.pdf (Accessed: 24 November 2016).

Soja, E. (2010) ‘Building a Spatial Theory of Justice’, in Seeking spatial justice.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 67–110.

Young, I.M. (2011) ‘Five Faces of Oppression’, in Justice and the politics of difference: [New in Paper]. United States: Princeton University Press.

List of Figures: Figure 1: Rosa, M. (2015) Mauá Square Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosamar/21782588246 (Accessed: 20 November 2016).

Figure 2: Silva, A. (2015) Children playing in Mauá Square Pier Available at: http://www.jb.com.br/fotos-e-videos/galeria/2015/10/11/criancas-brincam-no-pier-da-novapraca-maua/ (Accessed: 20 November 2016).

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