3.

Michael Rustin

The Fall and Rise of Public Space

M ichael Walzer's "Notes on Public Space" sion in the Protestant conception of the unme-
is a valuable reopening of a debate that in the diated relation between the individual believer
past has been very important to radical and God. It produced a culture of privacy, of
thought. I will here suggest that qualitative interior personal space and, in one limited
and aesthetic issues like this one may have an social extension of an otherwise individualistic
exemplary relevance for politics in late-capital- conception, of familial domesticity. Against
ist societies, and may help us to revitalize the this expanded definition of private interest, the
agenda of the left. concept of the public sphere diminished into
I want to situate our understanding of space the idea of a merely lawful polity regulating
and its uses in a longer historical perspective, the interactions of possessive individuals.
and to examine the antagonism that has long Where "public space" formerly had been a
existed between capitalism and the whole idea social space, belonging to collectivities of vari-
of public or, as I prefer to say, social space. I ous kinds and representing in physical terms
shall argue, first, that our most influential distinctive values and identities, it became re-
conceptions of social space, still preserved in duced under capitalism to a nonspace, a mere
buildings and city plans, are precapitalist in thoroughfare through which individuals moved
origin; second, that the partial failure of the in pursuit of their private purposes.
"modern movement" and of the radical uto- There is the risk in Walzer's concept of
pian ideas associated with it is due to the extent "open-mindedness" of a celebration of the im-
to which socialist alternatives to the 19th- personal stripped-down quality of the public.
century industrial city were unavoidably con- space of individualism, where nothing is held or
ceived of as compromises with or ameliorations known in common and where, therefore, there
of capitalism, and not as an alternative to it; is little scope for interaction or meaning. The
and third, that the spatial forms of late- or chaos of sensations, described in Georg Sim-
perhaps postcapitalism show a more promising mel's essay The Metropolis and Mental Life,
evolution than Walzer suggests. Perhaps this to which the "blase attitude" of indifference
difference in perspective derives from my own (coolness, we now say) is the city-dweller's self-
primary location in England, and more broadly protective response, erodes the sense of being
in Europe, where precapitalist architectural in a social relationship to others. It is this
and spatial forms have retained a more perva- destruction of the quality of "public space" in
sive role. the capitalist city, and its chronic overcrowd-
ing, squalor, and pollution that gave rise to the
From Public to Private Space antiurbanism of many modern planners. Ray-
mond Williams's The Country and the City
CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT depended upon an described this evolving reaction to the modern
ideology of individualism. This was articulated city in literature. Dickens's achievement stands
in a theory of economic man, in which individ- out as a last brilliant attempt to display all the
uals served the common good merely by the comings and goings of the modern city in terms
pursuit of their own interests. It found expres- of intelligible social meanings.
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 In practice, the everyday experience of visiting sites for tourists. Together with the
many capitalist cities is given a more dense and buildings that fill them they serve to encode
meaningful social texture than this, in at least public values of some kind, and to engender
two ways. One is through the more benign feelings of awe, admiration, or merely enjoy-
operations of the market, which is after all ment (of a panorama, visual diversity, architec-
supposed to encourage diversity. The special- tural form). They are more than empty spaces
ization of shops, cafs, places of entertainment, for private activity (though they are this, too).
and distinctive "quarters" is a consequence of Architecture provides a crucial framing for
the private development of urban space, avail- such public places and is often one of the main
able to those who can pay for it, and to a lesser attractions in them. By his emphasis on the
extent to the window-gazers who enjoy by variety of human uses of "open-minded public
watching. Jane Jacobs's Death and Life of space," rather than on the representation of
Great American Cities is essentially a polemic public meanings in architectural form, Walzer
on behalf of the artisanal and petty-capitalist leaves out an important dimension of such
users of city space, against the power of big places. People's identity and sense of the world
corporations and government planners who im- is expressed and reflected in the buildings they
posed monolithic, one-dimensional patterns of know, just as it is by their language or clothes.
land use on the city. It is important to note that Buildings are an important part of the public
many of the better, recent developments in the world.
life of British and American citiesthe re-
newal of old market, warehouse, and other The Precapitalist Origins of Public Space
varied-use areas, for examplehave only been
possible because of the significant role given to IT WAS LEWIS MUMFORD, in The City in His-
small traders and entrepreneurs. We should tory, who pointed out that most of the memora-
remember that much of the life of modern ble features of the city are precapitalist in their
cities depends on the vitality of this sector of origin. The medieval squares and market build-
small trading. ings in many European towns are the creation
It is most unlikely that such a diversity of of corporate institutions and trading or manu-
services could ever be provided by municipal or facturing guilds, not of individualist capital-
state trading companies, however enlightened. ism. Powerful social institutions were the pre-
The internal facilities of London's South Bank condition for this generous and elaborately
arts complex, for example, do not compensate articulated public space. The architecture of
for its windy open spaces and lack of cafs and churches and monasteries is also the creation
shops outside. If we like cities, market ex- of corporate institutions. The enclosed univer-
change has its indispensable place in them, and sity, in its characteristic English forms and in
to this extent Jacobs's (over)reaction to plan- its later development into the more open cam-
ning has had a good influence. Many of the pus, is a derivative of monastic ideals and
best settings for market exchange, however, similarly depends on social conceptions of ar-
have required governmental action to make the chitecture and space. Like other elaborated
space available. uses of land for expressive purposes, it required
Most cities have some authentically "pub- some form of corporate or social land owner-
lic" spacemore than the areas in-between ship, in which maximizing returns is not the
private uses of various kinds. Parks, gateways, only criterion for deciding land use.
embankments, town squares, streets designed The epoch of monarchical absolutism has
for ceremonial purposes rather than merely for also had a powerful influence on our concep-
transit, cathedrals and other religious build- tion of modern cities, in its surviving buildings
ings, market halls, museums, monuments, art and city plans, and in the transmutation of its
centers have this "public" character. Such types of display and monumentality into more
spaces are usually the most strongly empha- republican and democratic ceremonial forms.
sized in every city (in their scale, vista, and Baroque squares, monumental palaces and fa-
prominence) and provide the most frequented cades, planned vistas, ceremonial streets have

487
 been transposed from the absolutist era of horse show and the race meeting, evolved from
prerevolutionary France and imperial Vienna their country-house origins, retaining in each
to a later bourgeois period in Europe, and to case a pronounced aristocratic flavor. Other
the monumental republicanism of Washington, kinds of cultivationthe private library, the
D.C. Formal parks, originally developed as concert, for examplealso became democra-
extensions of palaces and great country houses, tized and available either by sale or right of
became democratized as green spaces of cities. local citizenship. In some instances an inter-
(In London several of them are still called vening form of restricted "public life"that of
Royal Parks.) the regiment or the "public school" (the British
The life of the aristocracy and the absolutist adjective is interesting from this point of view)
courts was, as Norbert Elias has pointed out in is the seedbed for the development of mod-
The Civilizing Process, characteristically lived ern forms of public culture, as, for instance,
in public. The distinction between space and character-building sports and the gentleman's
time for work and for leisure was developed by club.
the bourgeoisie, not the aristocracy, since the The point of all these institutions is that they
former lived characteristically by disciplined embody and derive from an idea of social
work and the latter on rents. For the peasantry values, connected with status and its display, or
and the working class, for the most part, the with sacred values held in common by corpo-
distinction was absent for a different reason, rate bodies, and not merely from concepts of
since physical labor until modern times swal- personal or familial self-cultivation. They are
lowed up nearly all of their time and space. precapitalist in spirit. The buildings in which
Public time and space, for the lower classes, many of these activities take place are also
seems to have been lived in the outdoors, on designed to celebrate corporate values. The
holidays and festivals. Life in the country dignified character of such "public buildings,"
house and at court consisted of activities de- following various classical traditions of design,
voted to social display and "conspicuous con- is of a piece with their social character.
sumption," the pursuit of games and pastimes The preindustrial village also seems some-
initially related to training for war and subse- times to have given rise to a sociable form of
quently merely mimicking it, and to courtship building and design, around a square, green, or
and the pursuit of interfamilial alliances village street. A limited variety of building
through marriage. types and sizes on the basis of a common
The development of bourgeois culture in- vernacular style has given rise to many settle-
volved a shift toward private space, in the basic ments that are both harmonious and diverse.
functions of meals (the private dining room The influence of large landowners and of urban
instead of the hall), movement (the private guilds in some small towns or larger villages
coach instead of the equestrian cavalcade), and was also important in imposing this more social
business (the private office instead of the pub- or conventional use of space. These unified
lic supplication). Inferiors, who were often forms of design, even of quite small buildings
present though disregarded in aristocratic where attractiveness lies in the whole ensem-
households, became excluded from the every- ble, retain an aura that is out of the ordinary
day life of the bourgeoisie. The celebration of and continue to draw tourists from near and
domesticity, with the sexual division of roles far. It seems that the public enjoyment of
that followed from it, is another aspect of the buildings today to a great extent depends on
growth of private rather than public space. the preservation and rehabilitation of the sur-
Mumford suggests that the aristocratic and viving artifacts of a more social and less purely
courtly ideals of gracious hospitality and physi- individualistic culture.
cal and mental cultivation became transmuted There have been periods when the urban
into the commercial hospitality of grand hotels, bourgeoisie was sufficiently committed to its
where access to a high style of entertainment is collective self-assertion as a class, against rival
available for money instead of by invitation. aristocratic or monarchical regimes, to be ca-
Public sporting events, such as the hunt, the pable of a similarly unified demarcation of
488
public space. The self-assertion of Victorian ualism's radical opponents to give an alterna-
municipalities, with their public squares and tive meaning to the physical environment, of-
town halls, and the creation of London's resi- fering another valuable heritage.
dential squares are examples. Another exam-
ple of the occasionally more social character of Capitalist Conceptions of Space
bourgeois urban design is the New England
town, where a sense of religious and political I WANT TO SUGGEST THAT CAPITALISM PROMOTES
community (expressed in the central impor- a view of space as an alienable and private
tance of churches and public buildings) gave a commodity. This also leads to a focus on indi-
unity to urban forms that later capitalist devel- viduals as opposed to corporate communities.
opments in America mostly did not retain. Functions that were formerly undertaken in
Specific occupational traditionsfor exam- public become individualized and segregated.
ple in marine building, in the design of mills of Michel Foucault has written about the devel-
various kinds during the earlier years of the opment of the modern asylum, prison, and
industrial revolution, or in the architecture of hospital as the individualization and segrega-
canal- and railway-buildinghave also devel- tion of formerly social spheres, seeing this as
oped distinctive styles, perhaps because their part of capitalist rationalization. We need only
long-lasting and more guildlike qualities gave compare the semipublic world of the Marshal-
rise to a sense of tradition and appropriate sea, a debtors' prison, in Dickens's Little Dorrit
form. The precondition for these identifiable with the modern prison cell block to see what
traditions and languages of public building this means. More generally, today's property
seems to be the existence of coherent social owners devote their main aesthetic efforts to
groups that share some common culture and internal design and to the outward appearance
wish to see their social identity reflected in of their own properties, not to shared spaces,
their physical environment. To this idea of and they do so with a view to resale value. No
social coherence, boundary, and meaning the one expected to sell a medieval church or a
spirit of capitalism has been generally antithet- market hall. Such buildings existed as public
ical. resources of the community and as its symbolic
Working-class communities usually have representations.
had less opportunity to give physical or archi- Perhaps the most consistently capitalist ur-
tectural expression to their collective differ- ban pattern is the gridiron street plan common
ences with capitalism, for obvious material in American cities (which, of course, mostly
reasons. But while many of their visible institu- lack a precapitalist history). This plan was
tions have been political in nature, there is also designed to allow the parcelization of blocks
a domain of popular working-class culture, among separate owners and developers; each
often developed in interaction with the market piece of land was conceived as a separate entity
economy, which has evolved particular and to be developed independently of every other.
traditional styles of dress, interior furnishings, The gridiron pattern provided the most mini-
entertainments, and their accompanying cul- mal public framework of access, transit, and
tures of physical space. Perhaps an artisan common services, and allowed the market to be
tradition has also been indirectly influential in the main regulator of land use. It allowed for
engineering and industrial design, as individ- infinite flexibility and change but also pre-
uals from working-class origins have moved cluded the larger differentiations and scale of
into positions where they could shape the pro- design that characterize most memorable cit-
ductive process. This sketch is drawn mainly ies. The "precinct-planning" that Jacobs at-
from a particular English experience. Perhaps tacks has produced squares and vistas as well
in other societies, with more revolutionary tra- as bureaucratic monoliths. In contrast to the
ditions, such as France, the spatial meaning of capitalist pattern of fully alienable land, both
the major landmarks of the capital city is precapitalist and later social democratic forms
somewhat more politicized. The point is that of ownership have sought to exercise greater
we should not discount the attempts of individ- constraint on what could be built where, with
489
 varying results. Who owns the land, and who stand the present situation and its possibilities.
has a say in how it is to be disposed, is the The modern movement confronted a con-
crucial question in regard to urban develop- trast between great technological and material
ment and planning. potential and the reality of urban squalor.
Walzer's sketch of the process of destruction Traditionalist idioms in architecture, through
of open-minded public space relates mostly to the Beaux Arts movement, were also often
the recent development of cities, and we might deployed in grandiose and pretentious ways to
be inclined to conclude from it that within decorate the facades of capitalist society, while
living memory such welcoming public space doing nothing for its real material problems.
was part of the experience of most citizens. But The rejection of tradition thus conjoined with
one should recall that most of the factors more democratic purposes for architecture.
Walzer citescommunications technologies, The agendas of pressing concerns for architects
the ideology of individualism, the factor of and planners were understandably related to
profit, and the forces of social inundation those of the mass movements and organizations
have been effecting change in urban forms for on which progressive hopes were based. These
nearly two centuries. The application of profit- focused on material conditionswhat we now
making criteria to building produced the over- describe as social welfareand also on the
crowding and lack of amenities of 19th-century possibilities of making commodities then
cities. Improvements in transportation led to largely confined to the middle class more
the cities' expansion, and to the process of widely available.
suburbanization as it became possible to seek The utilitarian purposes of public housing,
solitude and proximity to the countryside while and the application of modern techniques of
retaining access to the city for daily work. The manufacture to household objects, naturally
processes of "urban succession" took place as became the central concerns of progressive-
individuals of different ethnic and occupa- minded designers. Functionalism in building
tional groups sought to improve their location, and design was an attempt to apply the poten-
and new entrants replaced them in disad- tial of science and technology to everyday
vantaged areas. To most reformers of the latter needs, standardized and measured in order to
part of the 19th century and the early part of achieve the benefits of large-scale production.
this one, the city was the social problem, offer- Sometimes the resulting styles seemed to speak
ing neither comfort nor health, nor sufficient more of masses than of people. The Bauhaus in
private or public space to any but a tiny minor- the Weimar Republic was the most influential
ity. The view from Greenwich Village or areas proponent of this new approach, and compara-
like it is a somewhat privileged and special one. ble approaches became part of the aesthetic
One has to think of the environment of the orthodoxy of social democracy. We can now
whole metropolis, not merely of its most dy- see these developments as aspects of the ame-
namic and cosmopolitan central quarters, in lioration and humanization of capitalism,
deciding one's attitude to the city. rather than its transcendence. Houses and
apartments are where people live when they
A Defense of Urban Planning are not working; commodities are what they
buy in the shops with their income from labor.
WALZER CITES THE ATTITUDES Of planners as Both presuppose a capitalistor planned cap-
part of the contemporary problem; they impose italistproductive system, in the same way as
a preference for single-use and functionally did the other major institutions of the welfare
specialized space over the more mixed and state. This emphasis on the sphere of circula-
open forms that (sometimes) previously ex- tion and distribution is far from what such arts-
isted. Clearly, there are disastrous urban-re- and-crafts socialists as Morris had in mind
newal schemes that this correctly character- when they envisaged socialism above all as the
izes. But modernist architectural and planning transformation of production and work.
theory needs to be characterized in a longer There were problems in making a beautiful
historical perspective, so that we can under- and expressive environment out of an over-
490
whelming priority for functional housing. Alan ist urban planners, constrained as they un-
Colquohoun has pointed out (in his Essays in avoidably were by the practical limits of wel-
Architectural Criticism) that houses were of- fare reform.
ten, in ancient cities, merely the areas in be- In the United States, the ideology of town
tween the interesting public buildings, just as planning had some comparable successes
private life was the space not taken up by a through the progressive movement and later
more important public life. When the designers the New Deal. The development of city and
of public housing after World War II at- country parks, the provision of public access to
tempted to find a social and public rhetoric for and the protection of parts of the coastline, a
it, they often sacrificed the individuality and small number of planned urban developments,
diversity that people wanted from their dwell- and the regional planning of the Tennessee
ings. On the other hand, if they built separate Valley Authority are perhaps the most impor-
houses and gardens, they risked a repetitive tant outcomes in a setting much more domi-
and uniform scaling-down of more generous nated than in Europe by business priorities.
prototypes of private space. It was impossible Modern architecture in the U.S. developed
to build on the necessary huge scale and within mainly under private auspices, not through the
the severe cost constraints with always admira- agency of the state or municipality. Capitalism
ble aesthetic results. In some public housing has produced its modernist monument in the
projects, such as England's Alton Estate at Manhattan skyline, appropriately the product
Roehampton, with a variety of building types of an aggregation of many separate corporate
and a beautiful parkland site, architectural decisions rather than of a coordinated plan. But
success was achieved. But it may be easier to even here we should note that the impulse to
represent social purposes in spatial terms "build in style" transcends merely financial
where there are social and not merely aggre- motivations, and arises from the desire to es-
gated individual purposes in question. tablish a corporation's status rather than
In England, a powerful memory of preindus- merely profit. The development of many fine
trial rural and small-town culture and a "pre- private houses designed by leading architects
industrial" commitment to the idea of an in- has been another principal channel of modern-
tegrated community produced the distinctive ism in the United States, appropriately theo-
planners' utopia of the garden city, and its later rized by Frank Lloyd Wright in his anti-urban
derivatives in the postwar "new and expanded advocacy of the free-standing individual home-
town" schemes. The large-scale development stead.
of public housing in Britain also gave rise to a If we assess the pattern of urban develop-
domestication of modern architecture and ment over a relatively long-range period, it
compromise with vernacular house-and-garden seems to me that in Britain anyway recent
styles, as well as some of the excesses of tower- developments, in the main, have been benefi-
block development. The garden-city ideal has cial. One cannot discount the huge improve-
been patronized by urbanists such as Jane ments in housing standards brought about by
Jacobs: "His [Ebenezer Howard's] aim was the government regulation, public home-building
creation of self-sufficient small towns, really programs, tax subsidies to owner-occupiers,
very nice towns if you were docile and had no and rising standards of living. The basic census
plans of your own and did not mind spending indices of density of occupation (rooms per
your life among others with no plans of their person) and provision of major amenities (bath-
own." But in fact the garden city came nearer rooms, hot water, and so on) show the success
to a workable conception of an alternative of housing policies. Britain enjoys a much
working and living environment than any other higher standard of housing than its per capita
utopian scheme of the present day, and was income would lead one to expect. It has be-
unusual in thinking beyond the idea of the come fashionable to blame "planners" for the
housing project to the scale of a whole commu- continuing problems of slum estates and un-
nity. We should respect the intentions and suitable apartment blocks, while forgetting
achievements of this first generation of social- that it was the consequences of the market that

491
made these planned interventions necessary in mark some relationship with our own past and
the first place. that of our community. The many deliberate
Nor does the absence of such interventions decisions by public and private agencies to
now usually produce good inner-city environ- preserve and adapt the old structures of Brit-
ments in the U.S. The multiplication of subur- ain's cities and villages seem to reflect such
ban housing tracts and small-town communi- understanding. The lower land values in small-
ties is not much to the taste of cosmopolitan town developments, compared with those in
urbanists, but as Herbert Gans pointed out in the centers of cities, and the greater fiscal
Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life, resources of expanding towns, which lack the
such communities seem well suited to people at social burdens of older areas, may have given
certain stages of their lives (notably families public authorities a stronger hand in these
with children at home) and meet the aspira- developments. The growth of tourism, both
tions typical of many low- and middle-income local and distant, has reflected and amplified
families. The evidence is certainly that such this increased use of "old space." These devel-
communities have been freely chosen. opments seem to increase the availability and
Nor is this in England merely a process of quality of public space and also, in many cases,
creeping suburbanization, repeating the earlier its "open-mindedness."
growth of London and other large cities. The Some limited steps have been taken in a
more radical solution to the problem of a self- similar direction within the older industrial
defeating leapfrog into a suburbanized coun- areas of many British cities, though these are
tryside has been the development of free-stand- now overshadowed by high levels of industrial
ing towns, derived in part from the garden-city dereliction, unemployment, and poverty. The
and new-town concepts, but in most cases built larger cities' reduced density of population
around preexisting urban centers. The Green does, however, make it more feasible to de-
Belt concept has been one means of inducing velop some of their unused resourcesdisused
this change of strategy. This pattern has facili- docks, canals, old industrial buildings, attrac-
tated the development of houses and work- tive terrace housing, residential squaresand
places within the same towns (though usually this has been happening on some scale. An
separately zoned), and has reduced the neces- important prerequisite is a greater differentia-
sity for lengthy commuting journeys. It also tion of this urban space, in place of the feature-
makes use of old town centers and their more less, mixed-use urban and industrial sprawl
varied building stock, with all their advan- that still characterizes much of it. But the
tages: a range of rent levels, flexibility of land dominant trend of thinking is now toward iden-
use, and diversity of atmosphere. tifying strong focuses for development (which
The development of old towns enables some can also attract industry, commerce, higher
of the benefits of the precapitalist urban envi- rent levels, and so on) rather than merely
ronment to be combined with more modern indiscriminate rebuilding. The shift away from
amenities and scale. This has provided some "comprehensive development" to a philosophy
good "open-minded space" (in market squares, of rehabilitation and piecemeal renewal has
town parks, and on riversides, for example), been important in improving the urban envi-
and has met some of the objectives of diversity ronment.
and density of use. In smaller towns it seems
possible to achieve this without the correspond- Some Virtues of Single-Mindedness
ing big-city penumbra of huge surrounding
slums, urban blight, and sprawling suburbs, MICHAEL WALZER'S ADVOCACY of "open-mind-
which have been too large a price to pay for a edness" is appealingthe motorway cafe and
lively downtown. the airport lounge are few people's favorite
Kevin Lynchin his The Image of the City places. But it also goes somewhat against the
and What Time Is This Place?-describes the grain of one irresistible and even benign 20th-
human need for spatial orientation, for a sense century developmentincreasing diversity of
of physical location, so that our surroundings life-style. As a place to have a grown-up dinner,

492
McDonald's leaves something to be desired, tivities capable of public preference and self-
but for a children's supper it seems to be seen expression. Some precapitalist communities
even by the most sophisticated children as had this capability; so have some modern com-
perfection. Bird sanctuaries are fairly special- munities, through their public authorities; so
ized sorts of places, at least for their human do some private or semiprivate institutions,
visitors (perhaps the attraction is the open- such as universities and even some enlightened
minded space accorded to the birds), but their corporations. But the communities, social net-
creation, and that of fishing areas, mountain works, and cultures that might support a re-
trails, and coastal paths, is surely to be wel- naissance of social space and its design are
comed. The growing specialization of holiday hardly in common supply. The vision of what to
resorts and amenities, with the development of do with the resources of affluence is still widely
activity holidays, educational holidays (with lacking.
participants housed in college dormitories), A sure way of finding the kinds of public
music and poetry festivals, camping sites, ar- spaces from which people gain pleasure is to
chaeological excavations, canal restoration, see where they most like to go. The "atriums"
and so on, enlarge the available modes for of some new Manhattan skyscrapers (often
exploring oneself and one's surroundings. The built partly in response to the pressures of city
yachting marina, the local airport from which planners) are places that people seem to find
individuals can fly small planes, or the bowling interesting, both in themselves and for the
alley are places for weekend activities that opportunity they provide to be with other peo-
generate particular social communities. ple. It is contrary to observation to think that
Some people choose to go to seminars or people usually seek to avoid crowds. One at-
even to political meetings for their main de- traction of the shopping mallhowever func-
light, and presumably value the fairly single- tional and one-dimensional its purpose and
minded purposes that they pursue there. We however excessive the role of shopping in cap-
should want public spaces that make all these italist societiesis that it provides a sense of
things possible, but they can't always be all place, as well as a convenient solution to the
that open-minded, without threatening their problem of parking the car. The places tourists
purpose. (Nor need they always be public.) My like to go are another index, tourists being
argument attaches more importance to the ourselves as well as other people.
existence of social space than to whether it is
open-minded or not, though, to be sure, too The Metropolis Isn't Everything
much single-mindedness destroys any sense of
sociability. WE SHOULD EXPECT MORE of small- and me-
Understanding the possible benefits of dif- dium-sized towns, and not merely compare
ferentiation may enable us to develop a more them disparagingly with the greater cosmopoli-
inclusive pluralism, as a response to the pres- tan excitements of Manhattan and similar met-
sures of "inundation" that Walzer describes. ropolises. Most people cannot live in Manhat-
But a pluralist culture will have to provide tan or its like, or even visit it very often, and the
access to basic goods and opportunities for all, undue adulation of the marvels of such centers
if its competitions and conflicts are to be toler- is a symptom of an unduly stratified, merce-
able. If major groups are excluded from the nary, and centralized cultural marketplace.
sphere of common values and goods, then the Just as "open-minded space" depends on a
peace and stability of the whole system will shared social identity and the political powers
ultimately be threatened. Given a commitment that can give it expression, so a shared cultural
to basic equality of citizenship, and to the space requires communal identities to nurture
strengthening of territorial units that can con- it. Historically, cities of 100,000 people seem
tain individuals in some meaningful commu- to have sustained rich cultures, whose leading
nity, other differences of life-style may become practitioners have been able to interact with
less frightening. people from other cities without losing their
The texturing of social space requires collec- sense of local identity. We should favor a
493
culture as well as a politics of decentralization, wish to live in a knowable communitya less
and have some confidence that ordinary-sized materialist vision than the reigning ideology of
towns need not be places where one would only mass consumption and competition might sug-
live if one had "no plans of one's own." Other- gest.
wise the market, with its speculation in scarce Rather than politics leading to an improve-
commodities, turns "culture" into a "positional ment in our public space, it may be that im-
good." By definition, access to it is defined by provement in our public space itself points the
the exclusion of others. way to a possible improvement in our politics.
Perhaps the tropism that draws the best The pedestrianized town square, the thriving
toward the bright lights is the obverse of the street market, and the cleaned-up river with its
flight from social inundation by "failures," fishing people, which all result partly from
which Walzer describes as part of the current public decision, may show us that a sense of
pathology of the city. Both arise from a culture community is already here, if we know how to
of winners and losers. The art market, or the recognize and speak to it. The renewal of
celebrity of stars, or even the high visibility of municipal socialism in Britain may mean that
elite intellectual or academic coteries express this now has some political reflection. While
versions of capitalist competitiveness that a one cannot hold out much hope for trade union-
more egalitarian society would mitigate ism in more dispersed workplaces, one can see
through a richer particularism and sense of the basis for a community politics, in which full
place. What we need are multiple hierarchies, employment, good social services, and the use
not "single-minded" ones, and these can only of the community's resources for social as well
be sustained by local and regional diversity. as private purposes would be objectives held in
The towns of 50,000 to 500,000 citizensnot common.
the isolated homestead or the village or the This relatively hopeful perspective on public
metropolisseem the most promising building space and its political significance is based
blocks for this. chiefly on English experience, and one can well
see that the view from New Jersey might
Some Hopeful Prospects currently appear more as Michael Walzer de-
scribes it. In the U.S.A. there is less of a
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS in the use of public precapitalist heritage. And there is an apparent
space in Britain suggest the continuing vitality infinity of space and resources. The car now
of social values and the power of a precapitalist seems to be winning its battle to destroy the
heritage to shape contemporary self-defini- city as a form of life. Yet the sense of commu-
tions. These developments also indicate a new nity and locality has resonance here, too, and
determination to limit the damage the car can the attempts that are being made to restore old
do to our way of life, while not neglecting its city centers will be emulated elsewhere. Cer-
convenience. The migration to modest-sized tainly it seems reasonable to suggest, as Walzer
towns, closer to the countryside, often with does, that members of an affluent society will
lively schools and other public amenities (the sooner or later ask themselves, How can we do
communal sports center has been a thriving something for our place, instead of for my
area of new municipal enterprise in Britain) place? But for this to happen, we need a richer
may be the reflection of a widespread popular discussion of places and their possibilities.

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