Public space in the digital age, segregation and urban unease in metropolitan cities

Abstract

Public space is any place owned or used by the public that is available to all free of charge. It has its own spatial, environmental and economic characteristics. The speed of social changes and modes of communication, and the spread of digitalisation for the use of services and public spaces have given impetus to major urban transformations, relating both to ways of experiencing cities and to the complex of forms and rules for structuring public spaces. The essay defines the characteristics of public space, exclusionary factors dependent on territorial location (centre/periphery) and digitisation-induced changes in the quality of relations and cultural phenomena. Suburbs and metropolises are becoming increasingly segregating.

Public spaces, born to be inclusive, are increasingly becoming spaces of transit, sometimes giving a discouraging picture of social and urban conditions. There are public spaces characterised by a slow process of adaptation to the speed of the demands that contemporary society expresses. In these cases, public spaces fail to fulfil their social 'mandate'. The reasons for the lack of attractiveness of public spaces are described in the essay together with the preconditions for overcoming the crisis of representativeness. In the suburbs of Italian metropolitan cities there is a greater presence of disadvantaged and vulnerable families. The article proposes some reflections to rethink the relationship public spaces-city-environment-society in the era of great transitions.