The Emerging Public Realm of the Greater Bay Area Approaches to Public Space in a Chinese Megaregion

Through illustrated case studies and conceptual re-framings, this volume showcases ongoing transformations in public space, and its relationship to the public realm more broadly in the world?s most populous urban megaregion?the Greater Bay Area of southeastern China?projected to reach eighty million inhabitants by the year 2025.

This book assembles diverse approaches to interrogating the forms of public space and the public realm that are emerging in the context of this region?s rapid urban development in the last forty years, bringing together authors from urbanism, architecture, planning, sociology, anthropology and politics to examine innovative ways of framing and conceptualizing public space in/of the Greater Bay Area. The blend of authors? first-hand practical experiences has created a unique cross-disciplinary book that employs public space to frame issues of planning, political control, social inclusion, participation, learning/education and appropriation in the production of everyday urbanism. In the context of the Greater Bay Area, such spaces and practices also present opportunities for reconfiguring design-driven urban practice beyond traditional interventions manifested by the design of physical objects and public amenities to the design of new social protocols, processes, infrastructures and capabilities.

This is a captivating new dimension of urbanism and critical urban practice and will be of interest to academics, students and practitioners interested in urbanization in China.

Introduction: Approaching the public space of the Greater Bay Area megaregion. 1.From the Pearl River Delta estuary to the Greater Bay Area megaregion: Producing the new public realm 2.Planning a value network of exploding infrastructures and imploding centers in Shenzhen 3.Liquid stories: Maritime cultures in the Pearl River Delta 4.The hyper-collage city: Public space in the Greater Bay Area 5.Gardens as public space: A century of continuity and change in the Pearl River Delta, 1920-2020 6.Cross-border and transient public space in the Greater Bay Area 7.What kind of public space is the city of Shenzhen? 8.Interiorized urbanism in Macau: Model city for post-Mao China. 9.A comparative study of spatial analysis and residents’ perception of accessibility to public open space in Shenzhen 10.Responsible, remote research and design of the public realm in Shenzhen 11.Soul of the city: Public space and urban planning in Hong Kong 12.Where ‘City’ meets ‘Village’: Contesting public spaces during Shenzhen’s urban renewal 13.Three genealogies: The spatial production of social publics in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong 14.Hong Kong’s Civic Square: A short history of a public space 15.Reflections on emerging public space design approaches in Hong Kong. 16.Relearning the city and public space in the Greater Bay Area. 17.The GBA public realm and the megaregional dialectic: The public space of the megaregion, public spaces in the megaregion

Miodrag Mitrašinović is Professor of Urbanism and Architecture at Parsons School of Design, The New School. Miodrag is the co-editor of the Public Space Reader (Routledge 2021); editor of Concurrent Urbanities: Designing Infrastructures of Inclusion (Routledge 2016); co-editor of Travel, Space, Architecture (Routledge 2009); and author of Total Landscape, Theme Parks, Public Space (Routledge 2006). One of the foci of his scholarly work is infrastructural dimensions of public space, specifically at the intersections of urban and public design, socio-spatial justice and public policy.

Timothy Jachna is Professor of Architecture and Dean of the School of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) at the University of Cincinnati. His recent research and publications deal with the impact of digital technologies on urban public space, as well as the relationship between material/performative and psychological/sociological aspects of the planning, design, construction, inhabitation and critique of urban environments.