What Makes Public Space Public?

Matt Patterson
University of Toronto
Presented at the Michigan Social Theory Conference
March 2010
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

The question I will be addressing in the presentation is what makes public space

public? Focusing on how city inhabitants themselves make this distinction (rather than

political-economic criteria), I will present the concept of “public legitimation”, which I

define as a process by which particular urban spaces become recognized as legitimately

representing the collective interest and/or identity of a local public. I will then discusses

ways in which the material features of a space impact whether or not it will gain

legitimacy, and conclude with a discussion of how established legitimacy impacts the

social actions of different groups within the urban environment. My presentation will

draw on examples from a wide variety of urban sociological studies, as well as from my

own dissertation work.

My interest in developing a new approach to public space comes from my

dissertation work in the area of culture-led urbanization. This subfield of urban studies

investigates the causes and consequences of cultural strategies for stimulating post-

industrial urban economies. Often these strategies include building places within cities

that facilitate the consumption of unique cultural amenities aimed at attracting outside

investment into the local economy (Miles and Paddison 2005). Some of the best known

examples of culture-led urbanization include the development of the Frank Gehry-

designed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the work of Richard Florida (2002) in

promoting the “creative city”. My own research investigates two iconic architectural
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

developments in Toronto: the expansion of the Royal Ontario Museum by Daniel

Libeskind, and the expansion of the Art Gallery of Ontario by Frank Gehry.

Within the existing literature, scholars have often categorized and evaluated

culture-led developments according to a series of dichotomies. In general, these

developments have been classified as cosmopolitan or globally-focused rather than

locally-focused (Sklair 2006, 2005; McNeill 2005), designed for the production of

exchange-value rather than use-value (Logan and Molotch 1987; Harvey 1989), serving

exclusive private use rather than inclusive public use (Lees 2003; Peck 2005; Zukin 1995,

1991), alienating to local residents rather than embodying a sense of local ownership (Ho

2006; Friedmann 2007), and representing an expression of power and domination of

elites rather than consensus within civil society (Kaika and Thielen 2006).

What these dichotomies are often implicitly referring to is the broader question of

whether or not culture-led developments constitute public space – which is an important

question considering that these developments often rely on public concessions (Hannigan

1998: 137-143). The literature is generally sceptical on this question, since public space

is conventionally defined as being inclusive and administered by and for the local public.

However, before we can fully reach a conclusion on the ‘public-ness’ of culture-led

developments, we must have a clear idea of what makes public space ‘public’ in the first

place. Conventionally we define public space based on its political-economic

characteristics – ownership and administration, economic function, and physical design.

While they are important, political-economic factors are not on their own sufficient for

determining what makes public space public. To argue this point, I’ll consider two main

2
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

political-economic conceptions of public space: as an economic resource that is

universally accessible, and as a publicly-owned and administered service.

If we approach public space as an economic resource, then it should be considered

a “public good”. Kingwell (2008) explains that “in classical economics, a good is public

when access to it is not gated by ownership, so that its benefits—what make it a good—

are available to everyone, and one person’s use of the good does not diminish another’s

ability to use it”. However, while this might be the ideal of public space, it has very little

resonance with the history of cities. As Listerborn (2005) argues, we cannot identify any

historical urban spaces that have not been exclusionary to some groups. While in

principle one person’s use of public space should not “diminish another’s ability to use

it”, in practice the use of space is often a zero-sum game (Kingwell 2008). In other

words, space that is occupied by one group or used for one purpose may disqualify its use

by another group or for another purpose. Thus, universal access is not sufficient criteria

for explaining public space.

Another popular political-economic approach to public space focuses on

ownership and economic function. In this approach, public space is seen as being owned

and administered by a publicly accountable agency, and providing space for free public

expression (Stillerman 2006:296). However, this distinction is threatened by the rise of

what Zukin (1991) refers to as “liminal space”. She describes liminal space as zones that

stand “‘betwixt and between’ major social institutions”, such as between private

commerce and public service provision (p.28). With the rise of shopping malls, gated-

communities, and public-private partnerships, spaces are increasingly falling somewhere

in between traditional notions of public and private (Sandercock and Dovey 2002; Voyce

3
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

2006; Harvey 1989). Indeed, it is doubtful that the institutional division between the

private and public sectors has ever been sharp enough in modern society to serve as a

sufficient explanation for the difference between public and private space.

Thus while these political-economic distinctions offer us important dimensions

for understanding space, they are insufficient on their own for fully explaining what

makes public space public. This is because there is nothing intrinsic in the materiality of

space that determines whether or not it is public. Rather, I argue that public spaces

become public because of the meanings that have become attached to these spaces. It is

the inattention to meaning that has limited the ability of urban political-economy to

explain public space. These limitations are evident in the frequency by which urban

political-economy has been stretched beyond its explanatory range in order to make

statements about the meaning of space. For instance, Kaika and Thielen (2006) interpret

iconic architecture as sometimes celebrating individualism, and other times acting as a

capitalist “temptress”. Ho (2006) argues that state control over buildings weakens

“collective sense of ownership” within communities. Friedman (2007) dismisses iconic

architecture as not being “lived space” or “humanized”. These claims may be correct, but

they cannot be convincing until they specify the mechanism whereby the political-

economic characteristics of these spaces lead people to impose certain meanings upon

them. In order to establish this missing link, we must take the production of meaning

seriously by treating it as an autonomous force rather than being derivative of political-

economic conditions.

From Durkheim’s (1912) study of totemic objects to DiMaggio’s (1982) study of

high art, sociology has a long history of attempting to explain how societies symbolically

4
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

divide up the world around them and award special status and authority to certain people

or things. I argue that we can draw on this rich theoretical tradition in order to better

conceptualize public space. In particular, I would assert that public space is public

because it has gained meaningful legitimacy. Public space is public because we, as a

public, have accepted that the space legitimately represents our collective interests and/or

identity.

A common term in sociology, legitimacy refers to either a status of acceptability

or a process by which something becomes acceptable (Baumann 2007a; Zelditch 2001),

and it is probably best known from Max Weber’s (1968) discussion of “legitimate

domination”. For Weber, legitimation was closely tied with the idea of political

“interest”. Legitimation requires convincing people that their interests are being served

by accepting domination. This political formulation of legitimacy has been extended in a

variety of ways. In some instances legitimacy is characterized as a conservative social

force that reinforces domination and inequality (Della Fave 1986; Zelditch 2001; Tarifa

1997; Althusser 2001; and the Frankfurt School), but it has also been seen as a force for

change through the legitimation of social movements and new political regimes (Kluegel,

Mason, and Wegener 1999; Ferree and Merrill 2000). It should also be noted that the

interest associated with political legitimation is not necessarily personal or private

interest, but rather a collective public interest (Habermas 1976, 1991).

Recently legitimation has also been extended beyond the issue of political interest

in order to explain modes of classification or status attainment. Sociologists of culture,

for instance, have used legitimation to explain how some cultural products become

classified as “art” and are subsequently awarded the cultural status and institutional

5
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

rewards associated with this classification (Baumann 2007a, 2007b; Peterson 2003;

Bourdieu 1983; Becker 1982). Several scholars have also extended this form of analysis

to the study of architecture (Guillén 2006; Molnár 2005; Gartman 2000; Larson 1993),

and in doing so have provided an important precedent for the application of legitimacy to

space – although these studies have focused more on particular architectural styles rather

than actual spaces.

In order to sufficiently explain how public space becomes legitimated as public,

we must acknowledge both the political interest and cultural status applications of the

concept. Urban development is both a political act that involves one party realizing their

will (even against the opposition of others), and it is a cultural act in that it produces an

object that can be evaluated according to existing cultural values and aesthetic

predispositions. Drawing on both of these dimensions, I define public legitimation as the

process by which an urban space or development becomes accepted as a representation of

the general interest and/or collective identity of the local public, rather than representing

the narrow private interests of those who produced the development. Following from the

two approaches to legitimation discussed above, we can specify two dimensions of public

legitimacy in urban development:

1. Practical legitimation is achieved if the space is seen as facilitating some valued

public service as its primary purpose. In this case the function of the building is the

focus of legitimation. Many government buildings would fall into this category.

National museums and galleries, for instance, house and display valued cultural

artefacts out of a mandate of public service, as opposed to producing private profit.

6
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

2. Symbolic legitimation is achieved if the development project is understood to embody

the collective identity of a particular locality (neighbourhood or city). Here, the

specific form of the building is considered valuable and worthy of high status. There

is special monumental status awarded to structures that we feel express our collective

identity in some way. Heritage protection, for instance, is awarded to buildings that

achieve this symbolic status.

Analytically, I treat public legitimacy as the property of a material space, but it is

a property that is immaterial and socially constructed. Legitimacy refers to the subjective

meanings that become attached to a space by social actors or groups. These meanings

can range anywhere from full legitimacy (when the actors or groups fully accept that the

space represents public interest and/or collective identity), to full delegitimacy (where the

space is rejected as being a threat to public interest and/or collective identity). The

acceptance of legitimacy can also range in scope. Some public spaces are seen as

legitimate through a broad consensus that spans many social boundaries, while other

public spaces are highly contested and are interpreted quite differently according to

different populations.

Following Blumer (1969), meanings arise out of social interaction. Because

legitimation refers to a process of meaning construction, social interaction must be the

central focus of empirical analysis. Social actors and groups develop their understanding

of which spaces represent public interest and/or collective identity through their ongoing

social life within the urban environment. Often the legitimation of a particular space will

not become visible until the space is threatened by another group – prompting some form

of reaction. In studying legitimation empirically, we can approach the concept as either

7
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

an explanadum (dependent variable), or explanada (independent variable). In other

words, we can ask how legitimation emerges out of social interaction within the urban

environment, and we can also ask how established legitimation influences how people act

toward each other and toward the urban environment. In the reminder of this paper I will

be examining these two questions by drawing on existing urban studies research and

presenting initial hypotheses that connect public legitimation back to the political-

economy of space.

What Causes Legitimation?

As an explanadum, we are required to explain how people come to see certain

spaces as representing the public interest and collective identity. While I have

emphasized the role of meaning as being the defining feature of public space, we cannot

explain the construction of meaning without relating it back to its material context.

Below I provide a brief explanations and preliminary hypotheses for how different

material characteristics of a space influence the process of public legitimation.

1. Access and Appropriation

It has been mentioned earlier that public space is often conceptualized as a public

good with universal access. While this ideal may be unachievable in real life, the issue of

access is still consequential for public legitimation. It seems reasonable to hypothesize

that people will develop a stronger meaningful attachment to space that is more

accessible to them. Thus, the more universally accessible a space, the more widespread

legitimacy it will achieve. This connection works through practical legitimacy since

8
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

inaccessible spaces will probably not be seen as serving one’s interests. It also works

through symbolic legitimacy, since one may not identify with a space that is inaccessible

and therefore unfamiliar.

Nonetheless, we cannot overestimate the role of access to space in public

legitimation. Consider a comparison between a publicly-owned art gallery and a

privately-owned shopping mall. While we may agree that the art gallery is more public

than the shopping mall, it may be the mall that is more inclusive. In addition to charging

admission fees, the art gallery may only appeal to a limited group of people who possess

the right cultural capital (Bourdieu 1983). By comparison, shopping malls are relatively

easy to enter and navigate. Therefore, in this case, the most accessible space may not be

the most public.

2. Ownership, Administration, and Rules

In addition to access, ownership is another central dimension to existing political-

economic approaches to public space. It should be noted, however, that ownership is not

necessarily the same thing as administration. Owners do not have total control over the

rules that govern their property. Administration may be diffused between multiple

sources of authority, including the State which has the power to impose rules on space

through legislation. It is common for private property to be subject to various publicly-

imposed bylaws which may, for instance, dictate the activities that can occur on the

property, or restrict the physical appearance of the property. As well, with the rise of

liminality (Zukin 1991) and the public-private partnership (Harvey 1989), the

9
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

administration of publicly-owned space is often shared by private groups in exchange for

financial contributions or other forms of support.

One of the main influences of ownership and administration on the process of

public legitimation is through the rules and regulations over space that owners or

administrators can impose. This is because the activities that are allowed to occur within

a space are important to the way we understand it. Some scholars have gone so far as to

suggest that established codes of “civility” or conduct are essential for spaces to be

considered public, as long as they are enforced equally (Ghorra-Gobin 2009). Indeed, if

spaces are to represent public interest and/or collective identity, it may be necessary to

impose rules on those spaces in order ensure that they fulfill this function. Commercial

activities and advertising, for instance, are banned in many public spaces because they

are seen to threaten public legitimacy. Lloyd (2005) provides a good example of how

commercial activities can challenge the symbolic legitimacy of space by documenting

local resistance to the use of the “Urbis Orbis” building in Wicker Park for the filming of

MTV’s Real World: Chicago. By staging a national television show in a building that

some saw as a local “institution” (Lloyd 2004: 354), MTV conducted commercial activity

that seemed to violate the symbolic association many locals made between the Urbis

Orbis building and the collective identity of Wicker Park as a distinct bohemian

neighbourhood. Of course, because they lacked any administrative power, the local

opposition was unable to prevent MTV from hosting its show.

The types of regulations that are enforced within a space also relate closely to the

issue of inclusion and exclusion. This is because regulations often work to exclude those

groups that are either unable or unwilling to follow the rules. There has been a great deal

10
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

of work examining this form of exclusion. Street vending (Anjaria 2009, Duneier 1999,

Orum et al. 2009), skateboarding (Lees 2003), political debate (Orum et al. 2009), and

public sleeping (Duneier 1999) are just a few examples of activities that have been

subject to bans or crackdowns resulting in the exclusion of certain disadvantaged

populations (the homeless, the poor, youth, etc.). Furthermore, many scholars have

argued that the rules governing public space have become increasingly restrictive and

more intensively enforced within the past few decades. It has been suggested that as

cities have adopted neo-liberal governing policies, public spaces have become subject to

increased surveillance and tighter enforcement in order to protect their utility for

capitalist activities (Peck and Adam 2002). The role of private security forces assigned

to particular public spaces – as opposed to public police assigned to entire

neighbourhoods – has also been identified as a sign of increased regulation and

enforcement within public spaces (Zukin 1995; Shearing and Stenning 1983). The

conventional neo-liberal argument suggests that increased regulation makes public space

less public by restricting access. However, if we focus on legitimation, we can

hypothesize that increased regulation may decrease public legitimacy among those

groups who get excluded, and increase legitimacy among those groups who benefit from

regulation1.

3. Material Form and Design

As I have explained above, legitimation relates both to the function and form or a

particular space. We can examine the impact of the physical design of a space on

1
It should be noted that sometimes a lack of regulation can serve to exclude particular groups. Women, for
instance, have traditionally been excluded from public spaces that are seen as being too dangerous to enter
(Listerborn 2005).

11
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

legitimation through both of these paths. First consider function. In his famous article

“Do Artefacts Have Politics?” Winner (1980) argued that Robert Moses purposely

designed the bridges on his Long Island Parkway to be too low for busses to pass under.

Winner reasoned that Moses made this design decision in order prevent Jones Beach in

Long Island from being accessible to New York City’s low-income and Black

populations, who relied on buses for transportation. Therefore, the argument goes, the

Long Island Parkway continues to function according to Moses’ discriminatory and racist

politics long after Moses himself was out of the picture.

Although the accuracy of Winner’s historical facts have been called into question

(Joerges 1999), the basic premise of his argument – that urban design can serve political

ends – should be taken seriously. As with the story of the Long Island Expressways, the

design of a space has a real impact on accessibility. In a more recent example, Duneier

(1999) documents how Pennsylvania Station was redesigned so that it would no longer

function as a hospitable space to New York City’s homeless population. These redesigns

included eliminating the “nooks and corners” that the homeless could use to sleep or

panhandle out of sight from police and security cameras (p. 131). What we see from both

of these examples is that spaces can be designed in order to prevent certain activities and

thereby discourage certain populations from entering. Thus, design relates back to my

earlier hypothesis that restricted access to space will also restrict public legitimation (at

least among the groups that are excluded).

In addition to providing actual physical barriers to the access of a space (function)

design also has a symbolic or aesthetic quality (form). The aesthetics of a space can

invoke a variety of meaningful responses: excitement, offence, anger, boredom,

12
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

admiration, etc. Furthermore, aesthetic tastes often reflect social differences and serve as

markers for social boundaries (Bourdieu 1983; Lamont and Molnár 2002). Therefore

spaces can be designed to be more aesthetically appealing to some groups rather than

others. Zukin (2008) provides a relevant example by demonstrating how Fulton Street in

New York City – a popular shopping destination for the local African American

population – has been criticized by local Whites who see it as rundown and aesthetically

unappealing. Molnár (2005) demonstrates a similar aesthetic disagreement over the

architecture of housing projects in Hungary. These cases suggest that the design of space

can often be incorporated into “boundary” work that enables groups to symbolically

identify areas of the city that belong to them, and then either colonize or isolate the areas

they associate with outsiders (Lamont and Molnár 2002). I hypothesize is that a space

will gain more legitimacy when its design resonates with the aesthetic tastes of a

particular group – especially when the form is symbolically associated with the collective

identity of the group.

4. Age

The relationship between the public legitimacy of a building and its age has been

an important issue arising out of my own research on the Royal Ontario Museum and the

Art Gallery of Ontario, because both projects involve adding 21st century expansions to

early 20th century historic buildings. However, this relationship has been largely

unexamined in the existing literature. Do spaces ‘naturally’ become legitimated as they

age? Or, alternatively, do spaces need to be purposely and socially constructed as

legitimate by tastemakers? Research in the sociology of culture seems to support the

13
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

latter hypothesis. The rise of new aesthetic trends and art forms has been shown to be

caused by purposeful action resembling a social movement (Bauman 2007a; Peterson

2003). In the case of buildings, it may be naïve to assume that old buildings are

intrinsically more aesthetically appealing and symbolically legitimate. What is perhaps

more likely is that the artists and intellectuals who have historically appropriated old

buildings in neighbourhoods such as Soho (Zukin 1982) and Wicker Park (Lloyd 2005)

have (intentionally or not) used their position as tastemakers to construct these buildings

as aesthetically valuable. The role of Jane Jacobs and her book The Life and Death of

Great American Cities (1961) in legitimating the historic districts of New York City

exemplifies this hypothesis.

Also related to age is the difference between legitimating existing urban spaces,

and proposed urban developments. Both existing and proposed spaces can gain

legitimacy. For existing spaces, legitimacy can be rooted in the “lived” experience of

these spaces (Lefebvre 1991): how they have been used, who has access to them, etc.

However, for proposed spaces, legitimacy is based on projected or imagined experiences

of the space. Building new spaces in crowded cities often requires developers to

convince outside groups that their projects will serve the public interest – or at least not

threaten the public interest. Proposed developments that gain legitimacy may, for

instance, be eligible for public subsidies. Those developments that do not gain

legitimacy may be subject to political opposition. I would argue that in the absence of

concrete lived experiences, legitimacy is built on trust. Outside parties must be willing to

trust that major changes to the local built environment will be positive. There are many

strategies that developers use to establish trust including hiring well-known celebrity

14
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

architects, engaging in elaborate marketing campaigns, and setting up community

consultation sessions.

What are the Consequences of Legitimation?

While identifying the causes of legitimation is important, the concept would have

little value if legitimation had no consequences for social life. Thus, my final goal of this

paper is to briefly outline the consequences of social legitimacy. I begin with the basic

assertion that people will act differently toward those spaces that they accept as

representing public interest and/or collective identity than they will toward other spaces.

They will also act differently toward spaces they see as a threat to public interest and

collective identity. Therefore, I argue that the existence of public legitimacy or

delegitimacy helps us to explain urban social life and the production or the urban

landscape.

Studies of legitimacy have demonstrated that processes of legitimation vary

according to a variety of social factors including class position (Peterson 2003; Gartman

2000; Bourdieu 1983), pre-existing values (Zelditch 2001), and institutional settings

(Bauman 2007a; DiMaggio 1982; Becker 1982). We should also presume that responses

to legitimacy will also differ according to social structural factors. More specifically, the

social actions inspired by the acceptance or rejection of legitimacy are influenced by the

characteristics of the particular group or institution under consideration. The following

chart offers some preliminary hypotheses about how different groups and institutions

within the urban political realm respond to spaces that they see as publicly legitimate or

publicly delegitimate.

15
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

Group/Institution Legitimation Delegitimation

The State/Civic • Legislated Protection (e.g. • Withdrawal or decline in
Government heritage designations) service provision
• Investment of public funds • Revitalization through
for maintenance and demolition (e.g. slum
revitalization clearance)
• Other legislated
disincentives (e.g. zoning
laws aimed at discouraging
big box stores)

The Media/Architectural • Production of aesthetic • Criticizing or ignoring the

Tastemakers discourse which justifies space.
the value of the space (e.g.
Becker 1982:131-164)

Local Residents/Activists • Co-option (donations, • Protesting the space

voluntary work to maintain • Taking legal steps to
or promote the space) prevent the space from
• Protecting the space being built
through activism

Private Sector/Individuals • Co-option (donations, • Withdraw capital

advertising, or other forms • Target for redevelopment
of investment that connect through demolition
private identity/brand with
the public legitimation)

Tourists/Visiting Outsiders • Tourism • Ignoring the space

Table #1: How different groups and institutions act in response to the legitimation or delegitimation of a
space.

I propose that the way a group or institution reacts to legitimation depends on a

variety of social structural factors including institutional and material resources and rules

(Giddens 1984), as well as cultural schema or tools (Swidler 1986; Sewell 1992). In my

study of the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario, the middle class

residential groups who live nearby had the cultural tools available to understand and use

zoning laws and legal procedures in order to press their interests. These options may not

16
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

be available to working class residents who do not possess the same cultural tools.

Furthermore, upper-class residents may have even more options made available through

their comparatively large economic resources. Indeed, members of Toronto’s upper-class

had considerable influence over the Royal Ontario Museum and Art Gallery of Ontario

because their multi-million dollar donations were needed to fund the expansions in the

first place. Thus, while understandings of legitimation motivate social action within the

urban political sphere, this social action manifests itself within social structures that make

some resources and cultural tools more available than others.

Conclusion

As can be seen from the various examples I have referenced in this paper, the

phenomenon I refer to as “public legitimation” has been observed several times in the

existing urban studies literature. However, these observations have not yet been

formulated into a cohesive theory that relates the establishment public legitimacy to the

political-economy of space. My hope is that this preliminary theory of public

legitimation and its constituent hypotheses will form the basis for a new approach to

studying public space and urban development in general – one that takes into account

how the city’s inhabitants socially construct the built environment around them and come

to see certain spaces are legitimately representing them as a public both practically and

symbolically.

17
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

Bibliography

Althusser, Louis. 2001. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”. Pp. 85-126, in
Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.

Baumann, Shyon. 2007a. “A general theory of artistic legitimation: How art worlds are
like social movements.” Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the
Media, and the Arts 35:47-65.

Baumann, Shyon. 2007b. Hollywood Highbrow: From Entertainment to Art. Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press.

Becker, Howard. 1982. Art Worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Berkley, CA:
University of California Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1983. “The field of cultural production, or: the economic world
reversed.” Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media, and the
Arts. 12: 311-356.

Della Fave, Richard L. 1986. “Toward an explication of the legitimation process.” Social
Forces 65(2): 476-500.

DiMaggio, Paul. 1982. “Cultural entrepreneurship in nineteenth-century Boston; the

creation of an organizational base for high culture in America.” Media, Culture
and Society 4(1): 33-50.

Durkheim, Emile. 1995 [1912]. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York, NY:
Free Press.

Ferree, Myra Marx and David A. Merrill. 2000. “Hot movements, cold cognition:
thinking about social movements in gendered frames.” Contemporary Sociology
29(3): 454-462.

Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books.

Friedmann, John. “Reflections on place and place-making in the cities of China.”

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 31(2): 257-79.

Gartman, David. 2000. “Why Modern Architecture Emerged in Europe, no America: The
New Class and the Aesthetics of Technocracy.” Theory, Culture & Society 15(5):
75-96.

18
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

Ghorra-Gobin, Cynthia (2009). “Public Spaces in the Global Age” Presentation at the
Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, November 25,
2009.

Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society. Berkley, CA: University of

California Press.

Guillén, Mauro F. 2006. The Taylorized Beauty of the Mechanical: Scientific

Management and the Rise of the Modernist Architect. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.

Habermas, Jürgen 1976. Legitimation Crisis. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Habermas, Jürgen 1991. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry
into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hannigan, John. 1998. Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis.
New York: Routledge.

Harvey, David. 1989. “From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: the transformation in

urban governance in late capitalism”. Geografiska Annaler 71(B): 3-17.

Ho, K.C. 2006. “Where do community iconic structures fit in a globalizing city?” City.
10(1): 91-100.

Jacobs, Jane. 1992 (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York,
NY: Vintage Books.

Joerges, Bernward. 1999. “Do politics have artefacts?” Social Studies of Science 29(3):
411-431.

Kaika, Maria and Korinna Thielen. 2006. “Form follows power: a genealogy of urban
shrines.” City. 10(1):59-69.

Kluegel, James R., David S. Mason, and Bernd Wegener. 1999. “The legitimation of
capitalism in the postcommunist transition: public opinion about market justice,
1991–1996.” European Sociological Review 15(3): 251–283.

Larson, Magali Sarfatti. 1994. “Architectural competitions as discursive events.” Theory

and Society 23(4): 469-504.

Larson, Magali Sarfatti. 1993. Behind the postmodern façade: architectural change in
late twentieth-century America. Berkley: University of California Press.

19
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

Lees, Loretta. 2003. “The ambivalence of diversity and the politics of urban renaissance:
the case of growth in downtown Portland, Maine”. International Journal of
Urban and Regional Research 27(3): 613-634.

Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Listerborn, Carina. 2005. “How public can public spaces be? A short reply to Phil
Hubbard’s ‘Defending the indefensible? A response to Carina Listerborn’s
“Prostitution as ‘urban radical chic’: the silent acceptance of female
exploitation”’”. City 9(3): 381-384.

Lloyd, Richard. 2005. Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City. New
York: Routledge.

Lloyd, Richard. 2004. “The neighbourhood in cultural production: Material and Symbolic
Resources in the New Bohemia.” City & Community 3(4): 343-372.

Logan, John R. and Harvey L. Molotch. 1987. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of
Place. Berkeley: University of California Press.

McNeill, Donald. 2005 “In search of the global architect: the case of Norman Foster (and
Partners).” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29(3):501-515.

Miles, Steven and Ronan Paddison. 2005. “The rise and rise of culture-led urban
regeneration”. Urban Studies 42(5): 833-839.

Molnár, Virág 2005. “Cultural Politics and Modernist Architecture: The Tulip Debate in
Postwar Hungary.” American Sociological Review. 70(1):

Orum, Anthony M., Sidney Bata, Li Shumei, Tang Jiewei, Sang Yang, & Nguyen Thanh
Trung. 2009. “Public man and public space in Shanghai today.” City &
Community 8(4): 369-389.

Peck, Jamie. 2005. “Struggling with the creative class.” International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research 29(4): 740-770.

Peck, Jamie and Adam Tickell. 2002. “Neoliberalizing space.” Antipode 34(3): 380-404.

Peterson, Karin Elizabeth. 2003. “Discourse and display: the modern eye,
entrepreneurship, and the cultural transformation of the patchwork quilt.”
Sociological Perspectives 46(4): 461-490.

Sandercock, Leonie and Kim Dovey. 2002. “Pleasure, politics, and the ‘public interest’:
Melbourne’s riverscape revitalization.” Journal of the American Planning
Association 68(2): 151-164.

20
Michigan Social Theory Conference 2010 Matt Patterson

Sewell, Jr., William H. 1992. “Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency and

Transformation.” American Journal of Sociology, 98(1): 1-29.

Sklair, Leslie. 2006. “Iconic architecture and capitalist globalization.” City 10(1): 21-47.

Sklair, Leslie. 2005. “The transnational capitalist class and contemporary architecture in
globalizing cities.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
29(3):485-500.

Swidler, Ann. 1986. “Culture in action: Symbols and strategies.” American Sociological
Review 51(2): 273-286.

Tarifa, Fatos. 1997. “The quest for legitimacy and the withering away of utopia.” Social
Forces 76(2): 437-74.

Voyce, Malcolm. 2006. “Shopping malls in Australia: the end of public space and the rise
of ‘consumerist citizenship’?” Journal of Sociology 42(3): 269-286.

Weber, Max. 1968. Economy and Society (Volume 1). New York: Bedminster Press.

Winner, Langdon. 1980. “Do artefacts have politics?” Daedalus 109(1): 121-136.

Zelditch, Morris. 2001. “Processes of legitimation: recent developments and new

directions.” Social Psychology Quarterly 64(1): 4-17.

Zukin, Sharon. 2008. “Consuming authenticity: From outposts of difference to means of

exclusion.” Cultural Studies 22(5): 724-748.

Zukin, Sharon. 1995. The Cultures of Cities. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Zukin, Sharon. 1991. Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.

Zukin, Sharon. 1982. Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change. Baltimore: John
Hopkins University Press.

21