De Magalhaes, CS;
Freire Trigo, S;
(2017)
Contracting out publicness: The private management of the urban public realm and its implications.
Progress in Planning
, 115
pp. 1-28.
10.1016/j.progress.2016.01.001.
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Abstract
In the UK, there has been a noticeable increase in public space management arrangements based on transfer and contracting-out of managerial responsibilities to organisations outside the public sector, whether in the shape of community or private trusts, tenants organisations, Business Improvement Districts, private companies or voluntary sector organisations. Recent cuts in local authority budgets have accelerated this process. Underpinning it there is an underlying assumption that publicness, however defined, can be guaranteed by means other than public ownership, funding and management, and that public sector ownership and direct control might not be in themselves essential features of spaces that are public. This paper reports on a case study research tries that investigates the impact on public spaces of the transfer of management away from the public sector. Based on nine case studies of public spaces in London under a variety of different management arrangements, the paper discusses how publicness is affected by the various contractual forms of transfer and what the main implications of this process are for different stakeholders and for the public realm as a whole. The paper suggests that contracted-out management of public space might not necessarily affect publicness negatively. However, it requires judiciously designed accountability mechanisms and clear decisions by all key stakeholders, including local authorities, about whose aspirations will be privileged and how other aspirations should be protected. In a climate of austerity and spending cuts, this requires a different kind of public management and of policy.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Contracting out publicness: The private management of the urban public realm and its implications |
| Location: | UK |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.progress.2016.01.001 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2016.01.001 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2016. This manuscript version is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Non-derivative 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for personal and non-commercial use providing author and publisher attribution is clearly stated. Further details about CC BY licences are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. Access may be initially restricted by the publisher. |
| Keywords: | Public space management, Privatisation of public space, Publicness, Contractual governance, London |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > The Bartlett School of Planning |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1473948 |
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