Governments the world over worry about the decline of public engagement with formal politics and the losses of legitimacy that decline entails. But at the same time, governments the world over are deligitimizing public engagement by valuing publics-as-consumers, or ‘accidental publics’, over publics-as-citizens, or ‘purposive publics’. This paper explores these issues by looking particularly at the concept of democratic public space. It starts with the public/private distinction in political and social theory, arguing that it is a frequently misunderstood and misused distinction, especially when applied to space that can have both public and private aspects. It then turns to a discussion of the spatial requirements of democracy, and shows how present-day planning and spatial management practices are privileging a narrow range of public roles, and delegitimizing others. Drawing on examples from every continent, it shows how these shifts are not just the result of privatization or post-9/11 securitization, but result from the very management of public buildings as working spaces, and the management of open space for “all users”, a phrase that is used to mask exclusion rather than encourage inclusion.
