An introduction to the JRF's research on public spaces

Introduction

Successful public spaces rely on people using them. While the Government’s ‘Cleaner, safer, greener’ policy agenda has recognised the importance of public spaces, policies have tended to focus on design and management rather than what people value about public spaces or how they use them.

The JRF commissioned a series of research projects to look at different kinds of public space across Britain, how they are used and how they function. The projects focused on different types of places, including parks, town-centre high streets, open spaces in residential areas, shopping precincts and community centres.

Key messages

The findings provide clear evidence of the importance of public spaces in successful regeneration policies and for creating sustainable communities. Ken Worpole, author of the research programme summary, said:

“People make places, more than places make people. Regeneration and redesign may revamp an area and make it look good. But there is little point if people don’t use it. A prime example of this is stripping an area of features vulnerable to misuse, such as public toilets, or replacing these with ultra-modern designs. If these changes do not take account of the needs of the people who use the area, they can actively discourage them from coming to the place.”

Some of the key findings include:

The spaces that attract social activity are often banal in design, or untidy in their activities. For example, street markets and allotments are often a hub of social activity.
Sites of economic activity, such as local high streets, were often key to social exchange. Despite the success of these high streets outside city centres as focal points for communities, they tend to be overlooked and undervalued by local traffic engineers and town planners in attempts to deliver sustainable communities.
The presence of certain groups is not always welcome in public spaces. For example, young people need safe spaces for self expression and to develop their identities but are often vilified for ‘hanging out’ in groups.
More marginalised groups also encounter problems, as seen in work to examine community responses to street sex workers in five major cities. Regeneration schemes that displaced sex workers from areas where they had been tolerated resulted in an increase in the sex workers’ vulnerability and increased tensions among residents, for whom the issue became more visible.

Policy recommendations

JRF’s research suggests various pointers for future policy on public space. These include:

Those involved in the design and management of public spaces should ensure these places are inclusive, provide opportunities for exchange, and give users the ability to shape what happens there.
Local authorities have a key role to play both in helping to create places that people enjoy and use and in coordinating the activity that affects public spaces.
Regeneration that seeks to improve these places needs to be responsive to how people use public spaces, not just to aesthetic design ideas.
Strategies to solve anti-social behaviour by moving it elsewhere are likely to be ineffective and risk exacerbating local tensions.
It is important that local people are consulted about what they want from the public spaces in their communities if these places are to deliver their full promise.