Public and Private Spaces of the City

The subdivision of our social world and the spaces we inhabit into public and private spheres is a key feature of how a society organizes itself. This book looks at how and why social space is subdivided and explores the nature of each realm as defined by spatial and symbolic boundaries.
The subdivision of our social world and the spaces we inhabit into public and private spheres is one of the key features of how a society organizes itself. This affects individuals' mental states and experiences, regulates their behaviour, and superimposes a long lasting structure onto human societies. This book sets out to find out how and why social space is subdivided in this way and to explore the nature of each realm as defined by spatial and symbolic boundaries. To understand this dichotomous organization of space and society, the investigation is conducted along three scales: spatial scale (body, home, neighbourhood, city), degrees of exclusivity and openness (from the most private to the most public), and modes of social encounter and association with space (personal, interpersonal, impersonal). We start from the private, interior space of the mind and move outwards to the extensions of the body in space, the personal space. Then we visit the home, the domains of privacy, intimacy and property, followed by interpersonal spaces of sociability among strangers, communal spaces of the neighbourhood, the material and institutional public sphere and the impersonal spaces of the c