Citation

Malone K. Environ. Urban. 2002; 14(2): 157-168.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Human Settlements Programme, International Institute for Environment and Development, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/095624780201400213

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper examines city streets and public space as a domain in which social
values are asserted and contested. The definitions of spatial boundaries and of
acceptable and non-acceptable uses and users are, at the same time, expressions
of intolerance and difference within society. The paper focuses in particular on
the ways in which suspicion, intolerance and moral censure limit the spatial
world of young people in Australia, where various regulatory practices such as
curfews are common. The author reflects on the failures of the two main
strategies that have been used in Australia to control the presence of young
people, and concludes with some thoughts about the construction of streets and
public spaces as diverse and democratic places.