What makes a public space “public”?

The declared aim of the LOC project is to “return a square back to the city”^[1] and transform it from a large traffic hub to an open-air green agora. There is a technical contradiction in the affirmation since the property of the site will be transferred from the Municipality to the private company Nhood Services Italy S.p.A. Details of the partnership agreement are still not available, but the original call established the transfer of the surface rights to the private actors for a maximum of 90 years (at the prices of €331.50/sqm for the aboveground surfaces, €1511.35/sqm for the underground surfaces), plus the selling of a public building facing the square for 6 million euro^[2]. The transfer of ownership of a public square opens up questions concerning the availability of the spaces and the management of the facilities in the future configuration. These questions imply another point, which is the definition of a public space. Public refers to the ownership of the surface or to the open and free use by the public? The theoretical debate on the privatization of public space is vast, complex, and nuanced (Devereux & Littlefield, 2017). “Quasi-public spaces”, like shopping malls, private campuses, or sports grounds (Meert et al., 2006), or “privately owned public spaces” negotiated in exchange for development benefits (Németh, 2009), are in theory accessible to all. In practice, they tend to adopt special rules and regulations or to employ control measures, such as private surveillance and design features, that code spaces as private (Németh & Schmidt, 2011), raising concerns about social exclusion.

Limits of public spaces’ private redevelopment

In the case of Piazzale Loreto, the current physical design and overall quality of the public square are poor^[3]. The pedestrian crossing is a nightmare when the underground subway passages are closed at night, the cycling is dangerous, the lawns are practically inaccessible to human use, the spaces for gathering are confined to the sidewalks, and the ecological continuity is crosscutted by intense vehicular fluxes. The renderings of the LOC project promise, with a captivating design, to reverse all these usage, social, and ecological limits of this spatial configuration. But, what is the community renouncing when it sells out its public spaces, or the opportunity to realize and improve them, to a private developer?

The above-cited literature suggests that these kinds of projects are embedded in the predominant mode of neoliberal urban production, and that, in the given conditions, they can provide amenities suitable to users that the public is unable/unwilling to provide. A first point is if and how these spaces target a specific desirable population and exclude others. A second one is about the established functions and preferred activities that will take place. The nature of the LOC project team’s representative, a real estate holding of a retail multinational, is not secondary. Unsurprisingly, a consistent square space (3000 sqm of surfaces) is devoted to realizing private commerce and consumption structures. Three new buildings will connect to the underground retail tunnels, and their rooftop gardens will serve the dining activities. Below the polish of the environmental services, such as the contrast of heat islands and the absorption of carbon dioxide, the function of the public square appears completely transfigured into a consumeristic space for goods and food. The social function of the square is often framed in the project by an idea of organized and managed entertainment with scheduled activities and events. How much will the planned calendar privilege the needs of some users and disincentive those of others?

The risk is that the square will not be appropriable for free and independent use, or that uses judged as noncompliant will be banned. The local associations insisted on having a Resistance memorial, which was not included in the project. They will instead be provided with a meeting room of 200 sqm to enhance the project’s social value and involve the community. However, the traditional role of the public space as a place to express democracy and political contestation (Low & Smith, 2006) seems to be vanishing in an irretrievable past.

Looking behind the captivating environmentally sensitive design and community rhetoric, the project seems to promote public spaces devoted to commerce and consumption. The consultation with the local community, which requested a clear recognition in the new square of the historical memory of resistance to fascism, was ignored. The idea of “city” that emerges is close to a dystopian scenario of a segregated and conflict-cleansed society where the wealthy have the right to healthy and liveable spaces, while others who cannot afford to live in expensive neighborhoods do not.

Bibliography

Devereux, M., & Littlefield, D. (2017). A literature review on the privatisation of public space.

Low, S., & Smith, N. (Eds.). (2006). The politics of public space. Routledge.

Meert, H. Stuyck, C., José Cabrera, P., Dyb, E., Filipovic, M., Gyori, P., Hradecký, I., Loison, M., and Maas, R. (2006) The Changing Profiles of the Homeless People: conflict, rooflessness and the use of public space. Transnational Report, Working Group 2, European Observatory on Homelessness, FEANTSA.

Németh, J. (2009). Defining a public: The management of privately owned public space. Urban studies, 46(11), 2463-2490.

Németh, J., & Schmidt, S. (2011). The privatization of public space: modeling and measuring publicness. Environment and planning B: Planning and Design, 38(1), 5-23.

^[1] LOC 2026 website, last retrieved 12/12/2024.

^[2] Data from the Call for Piazzale Loreto Regeneration, last retrieved 12/12/2024. 

^[3] First-hand observations and assessment during field visits, spring 2024.