Who gets the right to the city? Governance, resistance and conflict in public space

The purpose of this project, financed by VR (2006-2008), conducted in cooperation with Dr. Catharina Thörn, Centrum för kulturstudier, Göteborg University, and Dr. Nils Hertting at IBF, is to analyse the accessibility of public space through a comparative study of the governance of the Central Business Districts in Göteborg and Stockholm. Accesibility is crucial for the CBD, particularly for its commercial parts; accessibilty, however, also implies potential problems of different kinds. A central question in this project, motivating is comparative approach, is the role of spatial design and control in the governance of public space and the conflicts and critical accidents emanating from the regulation of the accessibility of the city.  To get a better understanding of the conditions for the governance of the CBD, our intention is to analyse different critical situations where the question of accessibility is put on its head. What does it mean that a space is public, for whom is it public? How is the governance patterned that regulates what can be present, visible and coming together in the public space of the CBD? This, in its turn, raises further questions about the right to the city, citizenship and democracy.

Our ambition is also to develop a new theoretical frame, combining constructivism and rationalism, for a deeper understanding of the governance of the accessibility of public space. This presupposes combining theoretical perspectives from political science and sociology and working with the perspectives of several different actors.