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1:02pm Thursday, 11th March 2004

In an age of privatisation, it would seem this is becoming evermore true. Private provision of public services and facilities, be it bus routes or BUPA, has challenged the ecology of space and services most citizens experience. Its impossible to calculate the extent to which this is detrimental to a kind of collective public ethos. But, as Hajer suggests, this shift in ownership or designation musn't necessary imply a growing disregard or disability for the very things traditional public space delivers: the mixing of people, or our socialisation to difference.

It's not that the Mall, bogeyman to many, is suddenly ok or even that desirable, but that planning and social science are lost if they can't provide a positive account of the public domain within private places.

Hajer manages to do just this.

Comments

1
I'm not sure he has. It would seem to me that a view that doesn't miss a heartbeat where the marketisation of public spaces is concerned must be lacking a critical aspect. Will Davies was ruminating on things connected with weblogs over on iWire recently [http://www.theisociety.net/archives/001145.html#001145 ] and drew on Thomas Frank's work to bring in some issues about the sophistry and bombast of the market. I think what he was saying might be equally applicable here ...
Posted by Jack 'IronFist' Dalton  at 1:43pm on Thursday, 11th March 2004
2
A fair point Jack, but I hardly think Hajer's an apologist for the Walmarting of America. His point is somewhat more subtle and leads if anywhere to an effort to maxmise the public domain within and among private entities.
Posted by Peter MacLeod  at 3:54pm on Thursday, 11th March 2004
3
Accepted, and I can see how that position could attract. But I really think Frank's argument is worth a bit of time. At the risk of putting poor words on a sharp and penetrating thesis, his take on the New Economy is that there can be no true rapprochement between the market (with its coercive, destructive turn) and the democratic. And do what we would to force these two together, we simply cannot. They don't fit.
Posted by Jack 'IronFist' Dalton  at 8:41pm on Thursday, 11th March 2004
4
The Hajer book has been on my to-read list for a while. I think I have some sympathy for the position you outline, Peter, although its worth recognising that finding public experiences in private spaces is accompanied by finding private experiences in public spaces (e.g. people manically texting on the bus). This could be relevant: http://berkeley.intel-research.net/paulos/research/familiarstranger/ because it looks at how there is a middle ground between the community and the city, where we *know of* people, but don't actually *know* them.
Posted by Will Davies  at 11:42am on Friday, 12th March 2004
5
Frank is a smart guy, no question. Having read his book a few years back I'm probably due for a review. But it's interesting, another book that pops to mind here is Jane Jacobs' Systems of Survival. By her account two moral syndromes, commericial and guardian, animate society. Never are they mutually exclusive, its only their interplay that produces novel political attitudes and social outcomes. To my mind, she's also helpful in reframing the public/private divide. Will, point taken and appreciated. "The cult of the white ear buds" is only the latest, most pronounced example of this phenomena. I'll follow up that link.
Posted by Peter MacLeod  at 12:03pm on Friday, 12th March 2004
6
That book is on a lot of to-read lists! Must admit I've made do with his openDemocracy piece and a few odd references picked up around the place so far. Peter: thanks for the steer towards Jacobs. I'll dig it our an dtry again: seem to remember having neither time nor patience for it last time round...
Posted by Jack 'IronFist' Dalton  at 3:59pm on Friday, 12th March 2004
7
I'm really looking foward to seeing Hajer in this forum. As I just wrote in my own journal, I never thought I'd get excited by something with a title like this, but I was hugely impressed his Introduction to Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society. For me, it was a perfect follow-up to Will Davies's report for iSociety. Also, to backtrack through the comments on the effect of the market on private/public distinctions: In my attempts to think through these debates, I've found Douglas Holt's work on dialectics of branding even more useful than Frank's stuff (which I've always enjoyed. ) The piece I've been turing people on to for a while is Why Do Brands Cause Trouble?", originally published in the Journal of Consumer Behavior. I'm especially fond of the way Holt takes Gramscian "consumerism as resistance" to task, arguing that the postmodern brandings ideology of authenticity works to court consumer resistance as fuel for its own perpetuation, through affiliation with irony, subculture, verite and so forth. I should admit at this point that I'm reading both Hajer and Holt very idiosyncratically and selfishly. My own work is on micro-celebrity camgirl communities on the Web, so right now I see "politics" through what that somewhat bizaaro perspective. This is a long disclaimer to say that your mileage may certainly vary with any recommendation I throw out!
Posted by Terri Senft  at 4:33pm on Friday, 19th March 2004

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