Streets as platforms of public life

Cauvain, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9767-2222, Bruzzese, A and Karvonen, A, 2026. Streets as platforms of public life. Urban Planning, 11: 12105. ISSN 2183-7635

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Abstract

Streets are emerging as vibrant platforms of public life. While mobility continues to be the dominant function of these spaces, streets are being reconfigured by various stakeholders to promote multifunctional benefits, including socialisation and inclusion, play and rest, political action, economic opportunities, biodiversity, and cultural expression. This thematic issue includes a wide range of contributions to address how streets are being (re)configured as public spaces. The contributions build upon existing scholarship that addresses the role and governance of public space in cities, including notions of the “right to the city” and everyday life. These perspectives inform the rising concerns about privatisation and securitization of public space in cities globally, and about the diminishing emancipatory potential of streets for urban residents. At the same time, there are increasing calls to design more people‐centred cities and enhance the safety and wellbeing of urban residents by transforming vehicle‐centric streets into multifunctional spaces—actions often driven by local governments. The contributions to this thematic issue demonstrate how these strategies are playing out in a wide range of contexts, highlighting the emancipatory potential of street transformations for residents, practitioners, and scholars.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Urban Planning
Creators:	Cauvain, J., Bruzzese, A. and Karvonen, A.
Publisher:	Cogitatio
Date:	11 March 2026
Volume:	11
ISSN:	2183-7635
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.17645/up.12105 DOI 2591548 Other
Rights:	© Jenni Cauvain, Antonella Bruzzese, Andrew Karvonen. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	17 Mar 2026 16:00
Last Modified:	17 Mar 2026 16:00
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/55433

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