Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Ángela Mesa-Pedrazas
Author-Name: Ricardo Duque-Calvache
Title:  Privatización del espacio público en el centro de Granada (España)
Abstract: Resumen:En este trabajo se aborda la privatización del espacio público en el barrio Centro-Sagrario de Granada, explorando las posibles relaciones de esta con distintos procesos de cambio urbano y con la terciarización económica. Partiendo de una documentación sobre el proceso de privatización del espacio público de la ciudad, y a través de la observación directa, con la elaboración de cartografía temática y la construcción de distintos indicadores cuantitativos, se obtienen los resultados que apuntan a un carácter generalizado del tipo de privatización analizado, si bien con algunos matices espaciales y sociales.Abstract:
In recent decades, the debate on the crisis of
public space has not stopped growing, a transformation that combines two
dimensions, one physical and another social. Despite the many texts that deal
directly with public space, there is no consensus on its definition, to which
must be added the fact that public space is framed in an urban context that is
undergoing rapid transformations. Although many cities in the world share some
of these changes, variations are also found depending on their cultural reality
and their urban functions.
As a result of the current urbanization patterns
-extensive, diffuse, exclusive and privatizing- (Borja, 2011: 40), public space
becomes an object of study in a permanent crisis, where different phenomena and
processes of change take place. Although studies focus mainly in western
cities, changes occur increasingly on a global scale. 
Two opposing positions can be identified in the
literature: one in defense of public nature and oriented to the general
interest of the city's inhabitants, and another that advocates an exclusive use
of these spaces due to the different benefits it grants to the city and its
inhabitants. However, between these two extremes, there are also positions that
defend a multifunctional public space, capable of hosting different uses,
including private ones.
The conflict can be resolved studying the use of
public space, the type of practices that occur in it. However, to use an
operational definition of public space, it is necessary to refer to its
ownership. Following the perspective of Borja (1998), public space can be defined
through a legal conceptualization, understood as that space under the ownership
of a public administration, in charge of its accessibility and the regulation
of activities in it.
To clarify the object for the analysis, two
dimensions of the public space will be taken into account, one physical and one
symbolic. The influence of each dimension on the other makes public space a
complex object of study, with different related manifestations that interact.
On the one hand, the physical dimension of public space includes its layout and
morphology, its material expression in space, characterized by accessibility.
On the other, the symbolic dimension refers to the manifestations of society in
that space, the identity of the place and social practices, characterized by
individual and collective action, including all the uses given to these places.
In general terms, the privatization of public
space is a process, a set of actions that to a lesser or greater degree implies
the limitation of its physical accessibility and the social practices that make
it a privileged setting for urban society. Despite this common nexus,
privatization can have multiple natures, trajectories and effects, which is why
different typologies have been formulated that seek to collect them in their
entirety.
In our framework, privatizing practices are
defined as those actions on public space that limit its accessibility, whatever
its nature, development and effects. Its nature responds to who, how, and why.
Who promotes and puts them into practice, that is, the actor or social actors
who carry them out; the action or actions that comprise them; and finally, the
intention or intentions with which they are carried out (which are not always
equivalent to their effects).
The objective that guides this work emerges from
the need to get closer to the reality of this process on the ground: to
identify and analyze the disposition of different public and private elements
of the public space to obtain a geographical approach to the areas of the study
space more affected by the privatization practices analyzed.
Within this objective is the creation of
indicators that can quantify the situation, also serving as references for
subsequent analysis. Furthermore, based on the results, and in a more
theoretical and exploratory way, it will be reflected on the role of this
physical reality in its relationship with other processes of urban change, as a
starting point for further work. In this way, the aim is to initiate a path of
own research on the privatization of public space and thus achieve a better
understanding of its role concerning the interests of the different confronting
social actors.
In the first part of our paper, we present a
brief revision of the recent history of conflicts over the privatization of
public space in Granada, to better understand the context where this process
takes place. During the last decade there have been several events that have
fueled a growing conflict, in which various social actors in the city took part.
Next, through the elaboration of thematic
cartography, we have observed the physical arrangement of the most common
private elements in the Centro-Sagrario public space, such as the bars’
terraces. This choice is related, first, to the fact that the installation of
these terraces is the most common privatizing practice, and second because this
practice is the one that focuses the criticisms of the population sectors that
are against this privatization.
This cartography is accompanied by the
construction of different quantitative indicators derived from observation,
which better illustrate the concentration of these elements in space. To do
this, we analyzed the density (per hectare) of public or private elements, to
allow their comparison. In this way, the private elements observed, the bar
terraces, can be compared with the main elements of the public space whose
function is similar: the street and square benches and public playgrounds and
parks.
The results obtained can be summarized in the
following points. First, the spatial distribution of the public and private
elements observed is unequal in the different parts of the neighborhood. It has
been observed that there are areas more dedicated to transit than to staying in
public space, just as it has been observed that there are areas more and less
used by the population. Second, there are a greater number of privatization
points than public points in a generalized way. And third, that the
concentration of the different elements observed, especially the private
elements, is stronger in the areas of more tourist interest in the
neighborhood.
From the above, it follows that privatization is
not a process that affects the entire space in the same way, but is more
concentrated in the areas most related to tourism, more susceptible to adapting
to this form of consumption in public space.
It was also observed, with a generalized nature,
that in Centro-Sagrario other types of urban furniture not always conceived for
this use are used as public elements similar to benches, such as steps, edges
of fountains and decorative gardens, bases of posts, statues, or other elements,
even curbs of sidewalks and the ground, especially in squares. This adaptation
of use is nothing but a practice of creating public space, its materialization
as a constantly changing social construction. It is also proof of the
accessibility with which the public space was defined at the beginning. And
while ownership is another of its defining aspects on paper, in practice it is
the use, whether public or private, that gives the city's space its character.
Finally, a small space is reserved in the results
to name the main social actors that take part in urban conflicts in the city of
Granada and to review the main connections of the privatization of public space
with other processes of urban change that are conflictive, such as
touristification and gentrification, in addition to social control.
This paper has to be considered as an exploratory work, but at the same
time it opens the door to new inquiries about its evolution and its possible
impact on the urban conflicts that are manifested in this neighborhoo.
Classification-JEL: R1
Keywords: Espacio Público, Agrociudad, Privatización, Consumo, Turistificación, Public Space, City Tourism, Privatization, Consumption, Turistification
Pages: 187-214
Volume: 3
Year: 2022
File-URL: http://www.revistaestudiosregionales.com/documentos/articulos/pdf-articulo-2641.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:rer:articu:v:3:y:2022:p:187-214