Rights to Public Space, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2017 Law, Culture, and Gentrification in the American West

This book examines the roles that public space plays in gentrification. Considering both cultural norms of public behavior and the municipal regulation of behavior in public, it shows how commonplace acts in everyday public spaces like sidewalks, streets, and parks work to establish neighborhood legitimacy for newcomers while delegitimizing once authentic public practices of long-timers. With evidence drawn from the formerly Latino neighborhood of Highland in Denver, Colorado, this ethnographic study demonstrates how the regulation of public space plays a pivotal role in neighborhood change. First, there is often a profound disharmony between how people from different cultural complexes interpret and sanction behavior in everyday public spaces. Second, because regulations, codes, urban design, and enforcement protocols are deliberately changed, commonplace activities longtime neighborhood residents feel they have a right to do along sidewalks and streets and within their neighborhood parks sometimes unexpectedly misalign with what is actually possible or legal to do in these publicly accessible spaces.

¿Dónde Está Highland? .- Public Space and the Rights-Rift .- Rights to Public Space .- Vacant Space .- Temporary Space .- Sidewalk Space .- Street Space .- Park Space .- Coda: Now what?.

Sig Langegger is Assistant Professor of Geography at Akita International University, Japan. His work examines the spatial conditions that affect people’s lives as well as the urban plans and policies producing these conditions. Sig researches public space, property rights, social and environmental justice, gentrification, and the criminalization of homelessness.

Breaks new ground in the analysis of contemporary urban change Demonstrates how everyday practices, traditionally thought to be consequences of gentrification, are often actively transformed to advance gentrification Draws from ethnographic evidence and geographical theories of place, territory, and property to analyze the causes of gentrification in an inner-city neighborhood