Spontaneous public space: resource or nonsense?

Globalization, computerization and urban sprawl are identified as the three macro-factors of identity loss of the contemporary metropolis (Secchi, 2003). This has led to the crisis of the concept of public space, meant in its two aspects of physical environment with extension, limits and drawability and public realm, the social background that is not measurable with the Euclidean metric (Choay, 1992). This process has been affected by the economic market: a dramatic growth in the number of enclaves and thematic parks that become gathering places has deprived the center of the city of its role. But if, historically and by its own feature, public space is a place of free activities and social initiatives, the contemporary public spaces – often privately owned – are regulated by marketing strategies and are based on individual control (Gregotti, 1990). Several research have emphasized that the consumerism has been offered to citiziens in responding to the crisis already when, in the 60s of last century, many squares have become sites of protest and clash (Harvey 1989): a difficult urban management has been traced back to calm with sparkling lights and CCTV cameras. And so the role of public space has been undermined by the loss of its founding meaning, a sense of belonging, the public realm. This leads to a issue: can we overcame this crisis with a lowly movement? It is possible that this contradiction places become a chance for architecture to lead a real social role? The dramatic rise in urban populations results in the continuous growth of the contemporary metropolis that causes different phenomena varying from place to place: when speaking about developed countries we refer to the idea of sprawl, about developing countries spontaneous and informal phenomena dominate. In this settlement site of informal and illegal construction, it is still possible to find a sense of belonging and civil society (Friedman, 2004), a inhabiting way of the space other from their shack in relation to the social group with which the territory is divided. Nowadays the active participation approaches often lead to practical results in context like favelas and slums more often than in consolidated patterns: there is a willingness, a changing aspiration that are elsewhere sometimes a bit dormant (Davis, 2006). The simple fact that they had to organize oneself a shelter makes these neourbanized people citizens and not mere tenants. The environment is certainly problematic and it requires considerable efforts to understand the internal dynamics; a perusal that open up new chance can be provided through a closer research about new interpretative categories of public space and public realm.