ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Reimagining Youth-friendly Social Spaces: The Potentials of Privately Owned Public Spaces as Alternative Social Settings

Not scheduled

20m

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul

Oral Track 17 | PUBLIC SPACE

Speaker

Mohammad Mohammadi (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology)

Description

Young people use public spaces distinctively different from adults, seeking environments for social interactions, gatherings, and identity formation rather than purposeful activities. Their unique spatial use patterns - characterised by fluid group dynamics, extended stays, and spontaneous social activities - often conflict with conventional public space management. Traditional public spaces present some fundamental usability challenges like poor lighting during the night, lack of weather protection, inadequate amenities, and insufficient social surveillance and feeling safe, making them neither welcoming nor practically suitable for young people's complex social needs. While shopping malls and commercial centres have emerged as preferred alternatives, offering climate-controlled environments, comfortable seating, and diverse activities, they impose significant restrictions through surveillance regimes and commercial imperatives, creating a paradoxical situation where youth are simultaneously welcomed as consumers but rejected as social beings. This creates a fundamental dilemma as young people need inclusive spaces for social development, yet their presence is frequently perceived as problematic in urban life.
This research investigates how Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPSs) as an alternative social setting can bridge this spatial dilemma for youth. POPSs are policy-driven public amenities within private developments, legally mandated to serve as public spaces while operating under private management. These hybrid spaces offer a potential middle ground that combines commercial spaces' environmental comfort and management benefits with the accessibility and social freedom of public spaces. Through critical analysis of recent literature, we examine how POPS' distinctive characteristics can be leveraged to support youth's social dynamics and occupation patterns while addressing traditional public spaces' environmental constraints and commercial spaces' exclusionary practices. Our analysis explores different approaches to POPS design, management, and regulation across various contexts, with particular attention to European welfare state models that emphasize public oversight and social inclusion over purely market-driven imperatives. Through a systematic examination of recent empirical studies, we develop an evaluation framework that assesses POPS' social potential across four levels of interaction defined by Goffman (1963): Co-Present, Co-Attention, Co-Exchange, and Co-Action.
The findings suggest that while POPSs cannot fully replace traditional public spaces, they offer significant potential through balanced governance models and integrated design approaches combining private controls and inclusivity. Through comparative analysis, we identify spatial characteristics and management approaches that encourage youth accessibility and useability, from physical features to management practices that support or deter different levels of social interaction. The research contributes to both theoretical and practical domains of urban studies. Theoretically, it advances the understanding of how hybrid public-private governance models can support youth social needs in increasingly privatized urban environments. Practically, it provides planners and policymakers with specific regulatory tools to enhance POPS' social inclusivity through design guidelines, spatial programming requirements, and management protocols for youth engagement.

References

Goffman, Erving (1963) Behavior in public relation: notes on the social organization of gatherings. Macmillan.