Key points
- POPS were born in New York in 1961: more height for the developer in exchange for plazas whose ground stays private.
- Occupy was removed from Paternoster Square within hours and could occupy Zuccotti Park because it had to stay open 24 hours.
- Kayden counted more than 500 ceded plazas in New York and close to 4 in 10 failed the required standards.
Who controls your city's public spaces is a question answered by looking at who owns the ground: a newly opened plaza with wooden benches, young trees and water jets, where a security guard asks someone to stop filming the façade because, although you can cross it without paying and it looks like it belongs to everyone, it is private property. Privately owned public spaces, known as POPS, were born in New York with the zoning resolution of 1961, which allowed developers to build higher in exchange for ceding plazas and arcades to the public, and have spread across half the world. The city gets squares without spending money, the developer gets floor space worth far more, and the small print lies in ownership: the ground stays private, only the use is public.
Private, changeable rules with no electorate: the effects in small things
Whoever keeps ownership keeps the power to set opening hours, ban activities, hire security and decide who does not belong, and the effects show in small things. In these plazas sleeping, photographing without permission, handing out leaflets, playing music or sitting too long without consuming are usually forbidden, and none of it appears on a visible sign. When the Guardian investigated London's privately owned public spaces in 2017, the managers of the King's Cross development admitted an internal rulebook for users existed but refused to publish it. On the street the rules are known and can be appealed; in these enclosures they are private, changeable and enforced by someone who answers to no electorate.
Paternoster Square and Zuccotti Park: Occupy and the right of assembly
The most eloquent case came in 2011. Occupy London tried to camp in Paternoster Square, the plaza in front of the Stock Exchange that anyone would describe as public, and was removed within hours by a court order because the ground belonged to Mitsubishi Estate; protesting there was not demonstrating but, legally, trespassing, and the protesters ended up camping outside St Paul's Cathedral, a more accessible site than the supposed civic square. In New York the opposite happened: Occupy Wall Street occupied Zuccotti Park precisely because, as a POPS, it had to remain open twenty-four hours, and its owner took weeks to clear it. The same legal figure can close or open the right of assembly depending on how it is regulated.
Jerold Kayden and New York's five hundred plazas
The planning law professor Jerold Kayden catalogued one by one the plazas ceded by developers in New York and published the result in 2000: more than five hundred spaces, an impressive amount of surface obtained, and a quality that left much to be desired, with close to four in ten failing the required standards and a significant share closed or illegally privatised by their owners. The city had given away floor space in exchange for a consideration that in many cases was never fully delivered. His work led to audits, a mandatory signage law and the organisation Advocates for Privately Owned Public Space, which monitors compliance.
Shop window, not agora: interpretation, counterargument and regulation
The interpretation goes a step further. These plazas are not designed for people to stay but to circulate toward the shops and offices around them: they are shop window, not agora, and so they repeat the same repertoire of furniture uncomfortable to lie on, ambient music, impeccable planting and a total absence of conflict. As Richard Sennett argues, a living square needs friction, mixture and unforeseen uses, and here the opposite happens: discomfort is filtered out and with it the uncomfortable people. Anna Minton documented that model in Ground Control, and responses have begun to arrive: London's public space charter of 2021 asks for public rules and guaranteed access in new developments.
The counterargument is that without these deals many cities would have no new squares, that private spaces are usually better maintained and that most users never notice the difference. That is true, and precisely why regulation matters: requiring that rules of use be public and equivalent to those of the street, that access be guaranteed without hours or consumption, that cessions be registered and audited, and that the right of assembly not depend on an owner's goodwill. A city that does not control its public space has it on loan, and what is lent can be taken back.
Frequently asked questions
What is a privately owned public space?
It is a plaza, arcade or walkway a developer cedes to public use in exchange for extra floor space, a figure born with New York's 1961 zoning; the ground stays private and the owner keeps the power to set hours, ban activities, hire security and decide who does not belong.
How can privately owned public space be regulated?
By requiring that rules of use be public and equivalent to the street's, that access be guaranteed without hours or consumption, that cessions be registered, signposted and audited, as Jerold Kayden pushed in New York, and that the right of assembly not depend on an owner's goodwill, as London's public space charter asks.
