by Siddharth Ashish Shah
Public parks promote public health, combat urban vice, and function as a democratically available meeting place for all individuals. Fredrick Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed New York City’s Central Park, outlined these benefits in 1870. Evidently, parks’ performance impacts society as a whole. The rejuvenating experience of visiting a park is vital, especially as city life continues to thrive and grow increasingly fast-paced. They are a critical resource for promoting physical activity and provide an essential break from the built and man-made urban landscape.
Furthermore, parks serve as a meeting ground of diverse groups and interests. They are avenues for community organizing and activism. They provide citizens a space not only to rest, but also to exercise their rights to freedom of speech, expression, and assembly. Washington Square Park is an excellent example of a public park that has served as a safe haven to communicate political dissent and fringe artistic expression. Thus, the parameters of judging a public park as a well-functioning space should not only be that the park is well designed and well maintained, but also that it is widely accessible to all.
Usually, local governments are the custodians of public parks. However, due to political as well as fiscal and budgetary constraints, governments are finding difficulties in managing parks’ upkeep. Governments around the world are summoning the private sector to share the load of maintaining parkland for the sake of ensuring a balanced budget. There is also an argument made that the private sector is more efficient in delivering services and can better maintain public parks. While arguments of better services and fiscal prudence might be true, we would be wise to examine the concessions extended to the private sector when it manages a public space.
The private sector has substantially different motives than government. A government, is bound by the principles of constitution and cannot demonstrate a preference for a specific demography. Thus, when the responsibility to care for public space is passed unto the private sector, the dynamic between the park’s owner and its users is fundamentally changed.
In New York City, Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) are an example of public parks created through incentivizing developers, permitting them to add square footage beyond the stipulated zoning. These spaces while designated open to public use, are designed and maintained by the private developers. Here, the private management can restrict entry to individuals based on their discretion and control what types of activities are permissible within the space. Try lying down on a bench in one of such POPS outside a Midtown Manhattan office and you shall be escorted out by a uniformed guard. Can we consider these spaces inclusive if any person not dressed appropriately, as per the management’s discretion, can be denied the right to access the public facility? Can we consider these spaces inclusive when congregating in large groups or expressing yourself too loudly could be a reason enough to be asked to leave?
It is particularly contentious when private operators can impose restrictions on how public amenities and parks can be used based on their personal ideologies. It undercuts a citizen’s basic right to the city when private management can arbitrarily decide who and what activities are unwelcome. If these are public parks and spaces in their truest sense, they should be available for all. As per Olmsted’s guidelines discussed above, these public spaces cannot be considered well-functioning if they are not accessible to all. It is not democratic when the rules patrons of public parks and spaces are required to adhere to are not made by the representatives which the public elected. Thus we need to ensure even when government delegates public park maintenance and operations to the private sector, the authority to enforce rules and regulations must be held within an entity accountable to the public. This may add to costs of management or make it less efficient, but it shall be in protection of a valuable principle.