Places/spaces of Celebration and Protest: Citizenship, Civic Conversations and the Promotion of Rights and Obligations

Abstract

Built places/spaces have long been sites for civic conversations and the engagement of citizens to exercise their rights to celebrate, protest and bear witness. Two basic propositions concerning civic conversations, collective interests, as well as rights and obligations of citizens are off ered. Planners are encouraged to promote places/spaces for civic conversations as important elements to promote decent societies. Civic conversations are part of the broader milieu in which citizens conduct their lives, and the comments by Taylor on the malaise of modernity is suggested as a challenging contemporary context for planners as they seek to provide places/spaces for citizens to express opinions about the world. We also off er brief comments about citizenship, which provide further contextual material for an understanding of the planning of places/spaces. It is suggested that planners need to find creative ways to provide access to virtual places/spaces from physical places/spaces so that recent trends in technology using the Internet can complement the traditional public sites where citizens congregate. Issues relating to spaces of technological citizenship as virtual places/spaces for civic conversations are identifi ed. Can such initiatives engender active civic conversations, and new roles for citizens to infl uence outcomes on the quality of life? Finally, we explore the diffi culties of reconciling imperatives regarding rights and obligations, and to regulating and planning places/spaces, so that all citizens will be encouraged to engage in civic conversations to tackle collective and individual needs and wants.

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