Chin Yee Wong
27th March, 2008
Social Justice in the Context of Public and Recreational Spaces: Race and Social
Class
Introduction
Architecture historian Spiro Kostof once claimed that the “only legitimacy of the
street is as public space”, and that without public space, “there is no city” ( Kostof, 1992).
These urban spaces, otherwise known as “third places”1 in many planning literatures,
provide civic platforms where people from all walks of life can engage in formal and
informal processes of socialization as equals (Freeman, 2007). They have been used as
gathering places for conversations and recreation, as well as meeting points where
“consensuses that would influence government decision making” were built. However,
access to recreation and public spaces has increasingly become an issue of contention in
the past century, as changing racial and social dynamics invoke questions regarding
different groups’ rights of access to public and recreational spaces, and have led to
xenophobic measures that exclude specific social groups from these amenities.
In
addition, the emergence of globalization and neo-liberal market reforms in recent decades
have led to the rise of controlled “privatized public spaces”, and the demise of many
plazas and parks that were once a staple of public life.
These privately managed
shopping malls and amenities often cater to households of the middle and upper classes,
and discriminate against individuals and behaviours that are regarded as undesirable.
Such a trend only accentuates the less-privileged classes’ ongoing struggle for access to
Ray Oldenburg (1989) classified “third places” as places that are “neither workplace nor home, such as a
neighborhood pub or café, where people can meet and be in public”.
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recreational amenities, and has led some experts to lament the death of public space
(Davis, 1992; Freeman, 2007).
As Anton Rosenthal (2000) noted in his publication “Spectacle, Fear and Protest”,
analyses of public spaces reveal “changing relations of power, particularly between social
classes”. While historical reviews of public spaces in different eras point towards a
position of constant disadvantage held by the perceived “underclasses”2, the very same
members of these groups have often mobilized themselves formally and informally to
fight for access to recreational public spaces. Although these initiatives were arduous
and at times resulted in violence, they have nonetheless brought about legal and planning
legislations that protect the inclusive use of public recreational spaces. It is only fitting
that many of these battles were waged in the form of demonstrations and protests in the
same spaces in question.
The Struggle by Ethnic Minorities to Gain Access
In his seminal piece “Great, Good and Divided: The Politics of Public Space in
Rio de Janeiro”, Freeman (2007) stated that society is “divided along various lines across
which power is exercised and resisted, particularly those of class, race and gender”. As
contemporary urban planning literature reveals, race-based exclusion from public spaces
has not only been prevalent in the United States, but is also exercised in other ethnically
diverse countries. In the post-colonial era, darker-skinned individuals of African and
indigenous origins are frequently the subjects of discriminatory practices enforced
through ordinances and unwritten norms: one would only have to trace back to the mid
In “The Dangers of The Underclass: Its Harmfulness as a Planning Concept”, Gans (1991) described the
evolving nature of the term “underclass”. Different groups constitute the “underclasses”, depending on the
social dynamics at the time.
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1960’s to find that recreational spaces were still largely segregated in the United States.
Like racially restrictive housing covenants that prohibited blacks from living in middle
and upper class areas, “Whites only” deed restrictions had banned ethnic minorities from
enjoying many parks and beaches for much of the 20th century. In Los Angeles County,
African Americans could only visit “Inkwell”, a half-mile stretch beach between Pico and
Ocean Park Boulevards in Santa Monica, and Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach;
together they constituted only a miniscule portion of the county’s shoreline, giving
people of colour extremely limited access to the beach (Garcia & Baltodano, 2005).
Other municipalities, like Harrison County, Mississippi, saw authorities illegally impose
racial bans on public recreational facilities even though no formal ordinances were
enacted (Butler, 2002). Any attempts by African Americans to utilize facilities with
official and unofficial racial restrictions would regularly lead to legal punishments and
physical abuse issued by the police and white racists alike.
With a lack of avenues to public recreational facilities, African Americans
throughout the country have more than once demonstrated their frustration in the public
sphere through organized protests and “wade-ins” (Butler, 2002). These efforts were
often confronted with arrests and bodily harm, leading to fracases that were commonly
termed “race riots” during the transition from segregation to integration (Butler, 2002;
Wolcott, 2006). As the conflicts in Mississippi beach integration case demonstrated,
racial prejudices and violence by white mobs were generally condoned, and at worst,
coerced by authorities.
Fortunately, continuous efforts by integration activists and
evolved ethics have pressurized local governments to abide by federal anti-segregation
statutes of public spaces in the early 1970’s.
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Although explicit racial restrictions on public space usage have been broadly
outlawed around the world, ruling elites and land-use authorities have employed subtler
measures to exclude ethnic minorities from enjoying spaces of recreation. In “Recreation
and Race in the Postwar City: Buffalo’s 1956 Crystal Beach Riot”, Wolcott (2006)
detailed how developers made many amusement parks accessible only by highways,
putting them out of reach for poorer black households without a car. Such measures to
exclude the people of colour are still commonplace in modern day societies. Even the
coast of Rio de Janeiro – known as the “heaven of racial democracy” in a country that has
never experienced formal segregation – is not immune to land-use decisions that exclude
darker-skinned citizens of the favelas3 from accessing it: when right-leaning mayor
Moreira Franco stepped into power in 1987, he put a stop to a bus service that connected
the slums of Zona Norte to the beaches of Zona Sul, with much support from the coastal
communities (Freeman, 2007).
Much of the discriminatory acts against ethnic minorities and recreational spaces
find their roots in ignorance, lack of understanding and negative racial stereotypes; when
explaining his reason for opposing improvements to a public beach, a Newport Beach
city council member said that “with grass we usually get Mexicans coming in there early
in the morning and they claim it as theirs and it becomes their personal, private grounds
all day” (Garcia & Baltodano, 2005). More commonly, the presence of people of colour
suggests a less-safe environment for many white individuals of the upper classes.
Unfortunately, one-off incidents such as arrestaos4 (Freeman, 2007) in Rio de Janeiro
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Favela in Portuguese means shanty town.
In October 1992, gang disputes on the Ipanema Beach resulted in the fleeing of beach visitors.
Possessions that were left behind were looted by black gang members. The press named this event and
similar disturbances as “arrestaos”, which means grand theft in Portuguese.
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and black youth gang violence in Venice Beach (Davidson & Entrikin, 2005) only
reinforce the negative images of racial indigence and insurgence.
It is therefore
important for community organizers to emphasize on educational efforts that aims at the
elimination of negative stereotyping, and to raise awareness about the benefits of past
integration successes.
Globalization and Neo-Liberal Reforms as Catalysts of Public Space Exclusion
While much progress has been made on the abolishment of racist city ordinances
and other race-based exclusion methods, new trends towards gated, privatized complexes
and a dearth of government attention towards public amenities maintenance have
deprived other newly-pegged “underclasses” from access to public spaces.
Since the late 1980’s, much planning literature has framed globalization and
market-driven reforms as the chief culprits behind the “dualization” of cities and the loss
of authentic public spaces (Mollenkopf & Castells, 1991; Sassen, 1991). In the age of
globalization, experts argued that local governments regularly devise land-use regulations
that favour private developers as a means to incentivize global capital investments; as a
result, development initiatives have focused on the establishment of, for example,
expensive gated communities with their own shopping complexes and recreational
facilities, while neglecting the provision of leisure spaces to the wider public (Coy, 2006;
Crot, 2006). These privatized facilities of recreation, highly regulated, often prohibit
usage by the individuals who do not belong to the gated communities. In addition,
politicians have begun to impose unofficial social controls in public areas in order to
polish the cities’ global image.
This process is detailed by Feldman (2001) in
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“Philoctetes Revisted: White Public Space and the Political Geography of Public Safety”,
in which he described the establishment of “social control zones” as a means to impose
pre-conceived ideas of “public safety, urban planning, racial, gender and class depictions
that reify the dual city as an ideological object.” One can see the danger when social
policies guided by this ideal5 prompt the subjective criminalization of behaviors and
individuals, and the indiscriminant branding of “underclass” for many social and racial
groups, thus limiting their rights of access to public spaces.
Urban Planning and Policy Measures
As racial and social relations evolve in human settlements, poorer groups that fall
out of the mainstream will continue to be branded as “underclasses”. Although fractions
of societies are inclined to exclude members of these groups from public and recreational
spaces, planners and legislators can engage in active roles to ensure the democratic access
to these same spaces.
Ongoing education about the diverse groups that constitute the cities
As past social and urban planning literature demonstrate, exclusion is often
facilitated through land-use regulations that stem from narrow definitions of safety,
welfare and worse, stereotypes. It is only logical then, that efforts to protect the inclusive
usage of public spaces focus on the ongoing education about the various social groups
that compose the living space. When interviewed about the October 1992 arrestao that
terrified many visitors on the Ipanema Beach, a middleclass beachgoer highlighted her
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As an example, Rudy Giuliani said he would arrest individuals for assault in a 1993 New York City
mayoral debate about sheltering policy. According to him, assault can be defined as “when someone feels
threatened” (Feldman, 2001).
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distaste and stereotype for poor cariocas6, describing the instigators as “a cowardly
bunch of poor, dark skinned and badly dressed people” (Freeman, 2002). Meanwhile,
favela residents who were on the beach insisted the incident that was nothing more than a
usual youth disturbance.
While the contrast of opinions illustrates a genuine
disconnection between the two social classes, it also highlights the need for planners and
policy makers to pursue the formidable tasks of increasing dialogue, and subsequently,
understanding, among the various contingents that make up the cities.
Social mobilization of the perceived “underclasses”
Although formal and informal discriminatory measures continue to exclude
under-represented groups from public and recreational spaces, huge strides have been
made in the repeal of racist covenants from city ordinances as a result of mobilization
efforts by activists and African American communities. As advancements in the racial
integration of public spaces indicate, organized movements can help non-mainstream
members of societies garner wider attention and recognition; combined with the planning
and legal knowledge of urban planners, such initiatives can achieve greater effectiveness
in the battle against public space exclusion.
The design and sensitive enforcement of legislation that protects the democratic usage
of public space
To protect equal access to public spaces for all members of society, legislators
and planners need to devise policies that outlaw exclusionary practices, and shield public
amenities from the aforementioned negative consequences of globalization and neoliberal reforms. As societal values evolve with changing social and racial dynamics,
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Carioca means someone from Rio de Janeiro in Protuguese.
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these actors also need to play integral roles in the continuous education of law enforcers
in order to ensure the reasonable enforcement of regulations.
Conclusion
The contemporary history of public and recreational spaces reveals underrepresented groups’ constant struggle for access to them. “Whose city is this?” is a
question urban planners have to continuously address when jostling for equal access to
public amenities.
Formal, informal regulations and norms have often excluded the
“underclasses” from enjoying democratic usage of public and leisure facilities, regardless
of whether the definition of “underclass” have been based on ethnicity, gender, wealth or
immigration status. The employment of neo-liberal market reforms by local governments
in a globalized economy has only worsened the problem at hand, as new developments of
recreational facilities favour those in the wealthier segments of society.
To confront exclusionary mentalities and behaviours pertaining to the usage of
public and leisure spaces, policy makers and planners need to focus on the bridging of
understanding between the different interests that constitute the living environment.
They can also enhance the efficacy of excluded groups’ social mobilization efforts
through the provision of legal and planning advice. Lastly, they have to engage in
integral roles in the shaping of policies that stimulate just and equal access to public
spaces. Effective deployment of these measures will not fully eliminate exclusion in
public facilities, but will help foster an environment that encourages the proliferation of
truly democratic public and recreational spaces.
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