People, power and planning in public places: the making of Covenant Day

Heather Ritchie, Greg Lloyd , Keith Henry *

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Cities have been heralded as the spatial manifestation of
differentiated land uses and activities. The planning system has tried
to establish some interpretation of sense for the public good within
this paradoxical and contested place. There is no singular ‘public’,
however, that occupies the city. The concentrated heterogeneity of
life creates a tension for land use planning – on the one hand, seeking
to respond to the vibrancy that resides within city ‘messiness’, yet
on the other hand, executing contemporary governance decisions
that pursue the ‘sanitising’ of places into more ordered forms. Public
places, mirroring the complexities of urban societies, have undergone
significant transformations in their design, use, management and
ownership structures contributing to the acknowledged decline of
the urban public sphere. With the belief that a lack of understanding
of the nature of public places is a root cause behind its deterioration,
there is the need for the complex urban narratives to be investigated.
This paper explores public places in an attempt to better understand
the imaginaries and landscapes of public places through a new
institutional framework with the arguments developed through a
case study of the Covenant Day parade in Belfast, 2012.
Original languageEnglish
Article number1
Pages (from-to)109-131
Number of pages24
JournalUrban, Planning and Transport Research
Volume3
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 Dec 2015
Externally publishedYes

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