Social space and the city

As Tony Judt has observed, we are unwittingly veering towards a society of “gated individuals who do not know how to share public space to common advantage”1. With a rising tendency towards the privatisation of space and social life in the recent history of the city, an erosion of the public sphere has inevitably materialised. This loss of public life and in turn the public self have put the sustainability of Oldenburg’s “third places” in jeopardy; informal social spaces which situate themselves between the home place, workplace and marketplace, promoting interaction between different city users - unlike the relations produced by “non-places”, which encourage relationships between individuals based purely in utilitarian terms. In other words, we are forgetting how to use public space and are finding new ways to shield ourselves from otherness in a rapidly diversifying environment. This thinning sense of civic engagement is something which architecture and public space must address, but the question remains - how do we shift from a society which places such great importance and value on the individual?