Publicness of Contemporary Urban Spaces: Comparative Study Between Porto and Newcastle

Abstract

Public spaces, one of the key elements of the urban structure, have always accompanied major urban changes, with different levels of success. Recently, new forms of space provision and management have emerged, disrupting spatial structures; redefining social values, needs, and routines; and changing the way traditional public spaces are perceived. Although the last decades brought an extensive study and debate regarding the particularities of public spaces, different disciplines and points of view are rarely combined, justifying the need for a new tool. This paper describes the application of the publicness evaluation model (PEM) to eight case studies in Oporto, Portugal, and Newcastle upon Tyne, England. With the use of four interconnected areas of analysis, this framework attempts to include the particularities of the involvement of different stakeholders in the production of contemporary public space, as well as their concerns and expectations regarding each space, through the creation of a composite publicness score.