Public Space

Democracy and Public Space asks whether physical space is needed to make democracy work, and if so, what kinds? It was funded by the British Academy Small Grants Scheme and a book is out with Oxford University Press — click on the cover for details, including a sample chapter. It’s available in relatively (!) cheap hardback and paperback editions; a Kindle edition is available too from Amazon: click here.

Other papers from the project include:

• Parkinson, John. 2013. ‘How is space public? Implications for spatial policy and democracy’, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 31: 682-699
• Parkinson, John. 2013. ‘How legislatures work — and should work — as public space’, Democratizaton 20(3): 438-455
• Parkinson, John. 2009. ‘ Symbolic representation in public space: capital cities, presence and memory’, Representation 45(1):  1-14
• Parkinson, John. 2009. ‘Holistic democracy and public space’, in Turmel, P and M. Kingwell (eds.) Rites of Way: the politics and poetics of public space. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
• Parkinson, John 2009. ‘Does democracy require physical public space?’ in Geenens, R. and R. Tinnevelt (eds.), Does Truth Matter? Democracy and public space. Dordrecht: Springer, pp.101-114

Media coverage

An August, 2012 piece in The Atlantic Cities sums up the key ideas, especially with reference to Washington, DC, while the Canberra Times has an article on the Australian results. There’s also a 2008 article in The Guardian which quotes me on the subject of the redesign of Parliament Square in London.

Most recently I was interviewed by CBC Ottawa on the subject of the renovation of the Centre Block of the Canadian parliament – links and key ideas from the discussion are available here.