Rights to Public Space

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxviii

   PDF

2. ¿Dónde Está Highland?

   • Sig Langegger

   Pages 1-25

3. Public Space and the Rights-Rift

   • Sig Langegger

   Pages 27-51

4. Rights to Public Space

   • Sig Langegger

   Pages 53-70

5. Vacant Space

   • Sig Langegger

   Pages 71-91

6. Temporary Space

   • Sig Langegger

   Pages 93-116

7. Sidewalk Space

   • Sig Langegger

   Pages 117-140

8. Street Space

   • Sig Langegger

   Pages 141-164

9. Park Space

   • Sig Langegger

   Pages 165-191

10. Coda: Now What?

    • Sig Langegger

    Pages 193-203

11. Back Matter

    Pages 205-210

    PDF

This book examines the roles that public space plays in gentrification. Considering both cultural norms of public behavior and the municipal regulation of behavior in public, it shows how commonplace acts in everyday public spaces like sidewalks, streets, and parks work to establish neighborhood legitimacy for newcomers while delegitimizing once authentic public practices of long-timers. With evidence drawn from the formerly Latino neighborhood of Highland in Denver, Colorado, this ethnographic study demonstrates how the regulation of public space plays a pivotal role in neighborhood change. First, there is often a profound disharmony between how people from different cultural complexes interpret and sanction behavior in everyday public spaces. Second, because regulations, codes, urban design, and enforcement protocols are deliberately changed, commonplace activities longtime neighborhood residents feel they have a right to do along sidewalks and streets and within their neighborhood parks sometimes unexpectedly misalign with what is actually possible or legal to do in these publicly accessible spaces.

• Urban Studies
• Gentrification
• Public Space
• Urban Planning
• Urban Sociology
• Neighborhood Change
• US West
• Governance
• area studies
• urban geography and urbanism

• Akita International University , Akita City, Japan

  Sig Langegger

Sig Langegger is Assistant Professor of Geography at Akita International University, Japan. His work examines the spatial conditions that affect people’s lives as well as the urban plans and policies producing these conditions. Sig researches public space, property rights, social and environmental justice, gentrification, and the criminalization of homelessness.

Policies and ethics