Animating Public Space

Abstract

This chapter interrogates the growing and ongoing bond forged between leisure and public space to shape the urban landscape and imbue it with collective meaning. Focusing on the animation of public space, which I define here as the deliberate, usually temporary employment of festivals, events, programmed activities, or pop-up leisure to transform, enliven, and/ or alter public spaces and stage urban life, I aim to sensitize readers to the contested meaning of ‘public’, underscore the complexity of place mean- ings and values, and expose the routine appropriation of the ‘animation’ of public space to legitimize claims to urban space and serve the public good. In so doing, I emphasize the politics of transformative place-making and implicate leisure as an appropriating device in this process.