occupied: public space and the 99%
DESCRIPTION
An essay about #OWS and the right to protest in public space.TRANSCRIPT
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
A. Schuknecht, R. Tidmore
OCCUPIED: PUBLIC SPACE AND THE 99%
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore Occupied: Public Space and the 99%
Author’s Note: We have studied and participated in actions of occupy encampments in Oakland, San Francisco and on the UC Berkeley campus. We are first-hand witnesses of the use of police brutality to clear the encampment on campus – jabbing and overhand baton swings to the faces of students on November 9th were followed by practiced intimidation tactics by police officers in riot gear, and the eventual elimination of the camp on campus. The following essay follows from spatial analysis and interviews of participants in San Francisco and Oakland Occupy encampments, from our own experiences with the encampments and related protests, and from a semester-long study of “publics and their spaces”.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to peti-tion the Government for a redress of grievances.
1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
Early morning on the 4th of June, 1989, tanks and troops arrived at Tiananmen Square in Beijing to
clear an encampment of protesters that had been occupying the space since the middle of April. What started
as a mass mourning over the death of a popular government official had grown into a movement concerned
with democracy, anti-corruption, freedom of speech, and finally the right to occupy.
Prior to the military’s arrival, the square had been inhabited for an entirely different purpose than for
which it was originally conceived. Built during the time of Mao Zedong, a space that reflected imperialism, pow-
er, and exclusive use by a totalitarian regime had become a civic space characterized by populism and used to
display unmediated anger at the government. Massive support for the protesters’ cause and a clear memory of
the government’s overwhelming use of force to squash the protest has cemented global opinion in support of
the civic occupation of Tiananmen Square, but the story in Beijing is much different. While China’s recent boom
has, in some cases, amounted to a growth in publicly available open space, the creation of civic open spaces
in new urban developments have not followed. Rather than reflecting support of occupation and protest as a
legitimate use of public space, China’s urban development practices exhibit an attempt to control social unrest.
While this is not a new development in China, it represents a dangerous direction that our country could take if
it continues its similarly harsh repression of the peoples’ rights to occupy public space.
Occupation as a method of protest has a long history in the US. In the late 1700s, veterans gathered
at the capitol for several weeks to demand pay. In 1932 the Bonus Army veterans’ encampment at the Mall in
Washington DC was dismantled by tanks and cavalry after several months of occupation. In 1971 and 1976
Vietnam War vets occupied the statue of liberty to bring attention to their cause. With varying success, oc-
cupations of public space have been used since the founding of the United States to draw attention to under-
recognized problems and, very literally, to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Each time, the
protests have been dismantled by force, and that decision has often been politically unpopular. More recently,
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
the #Occupy movement has demonstrated once again that the right to use public space for protest continues
to be extremely limited.
Occupy Wall Street began as a protest against the inequalities inherent in our current political and
economic systems, but the forceful crackdowns on protesters across the nation indicate that something else
is at stake - the right to public space. By losing our ability to occupy public space, we are losing a major outlet
in the free expression of our 1st amendment rights. Furthermore, by repeatedly dismantling protest encamp-
ments using military tactics, the government is sending the message that dissent will not be tolerated unless it
can be carefully contained. In this new realm, public civic space is valued not for its democratic purpose of civic
engagement, not for public debate and the exercise of free speech, but as a highly controlled dressing to be
adorned to the layout of a city grid.
Locating the Public Sphere
The Occupy movement does not exist as part of the state nor of the economy, though it’s goal is to
influence both. It is part of what Juergen Habermas defines as the theoretical “public sphere”. The so-called
public sphere is located between private interests of the economy and public matters of the state. Given that
the movement is a response to the increased influence of economic private interests in the supposedly publicly
controlled government, Occupy’s location within the theoretical public sphere is extremely relevant. In
essence, Occupy is the public sphere manifested in physical space. This democratic region between state and
economy is used to influence public opinion in order to affect both political and economic change. As the core
of our democracy, the public sphere is both powerful and highly contested, with different groups vying for public
support.
Rational Discourse
To influence public opinion, groups employ different methods to attract attention and gain support.
Habermas’ original definition of the public sphere limited it to rational discourse. However, as Nancy Fraser
recognizes, and Mario Savio so eloquently put it, “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes
so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And
you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus,
and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it
that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.” There is therefore a limit to what
Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Social Text, no 25/26, 1990, 57.
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Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
can be accomplished by Habermas’ idealized rational discourse. The physical occupation of public space,
which generated enough support to give the movement a significant voice for change within the system, has
proven the effectiveness of confrontational protest tactics that are decidedly non-discursive. However, the suc-
cess of the horizontally-democratic General Assemblies (with their open “Stacks” and People’s Mic processes)
have shown that rational discourse is a powerful and effective tool for change. It appears that movements
must employ both tactics if they are to be successful. In the #Occupy Model, discursive interactions at Gen-
eral Assemblies create and deliberate upon which protest tactics and what actions to take in the future. This
model ensures that all activities are considered and that those deemed most appropriate are carried forward.
Paradoxically, as the actions of some anarchists have demonstrated in Oakland, the horizontal nature of the
movement also ensures that all individual actions may still be carried out, regardless of their support in general
assemblies.
The “People’s Mic” and “Stacks” procedures also limit the amount of mediation that occurs between the
sender and the receiver of information. They serve to reduce what Linda Alcoff refers to as, “speaking for
others” whereby a person purports to represent the interests of a larger group of people. At the beginning of
the stacks process, the speaker customarily locates his or herself in relation to the crowd that is gathered, so
that any inherent biases in location can be considered by each member of the crowd. In general, the tactics
used at Occupy suggest an intimate understanding of democratic process. They are arguably the clearest
examples of the power of direct democracy in action today, ensuring as much as possible that the multiple
publics represented by the slogan, “We are the 99%” are represented fairly and democratically.
Multiple Publics
The idea of multiple publics is fundamental to the functioning democracy of the public sphere. With-
out acknowledging that multiple publics exist (and that there does not exist one single unified public), Fraser
argues that we make the mistake of ignoring important actors, resulting in a public sphere that is inherently
exclusionary. Movements typically encompass multiple groups of people with different interests and agendas,
and the same is true of Occupy. In the encampments there are labor organizers, the unemployed, traveling
activists, homeless people, teachers’ unions, students, anarchists, and families. The strength of Occupy’s anti-
hierarchical nature is that it prevents one public from dominating the conversation or the direction of the move-
Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Social Text, no. 25/26, 1990, 62. Linda Alcoff, “The Problem of Speaking for Others,” in Cultural Critique, no. 20, Winter 1991-1992, 6. Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Social Text, no. 25/26, 1990, 65-66.
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ment. It is defiantly leaderless, and it has blatantly refused to voice any demands, thereby passively accepting
all publics (and their varied complaints, causes, and issues) under its banner. However, #OWS goes beyond
simply giving a voice to multiple publics. Following Fraser’s insistence that a public must define itself in order
to participate in the public sphere, Occupy is essentially defining itself as a new public, one that unites almost
all others: the 99% of the population that controls only 60% of the wealth in the country. By encompassing the
largest public imaginable, this definition of the movement was an extremely successful tactical strategy that
initially gave #OWS wide public support, and helped prevent fragmentation among different interest groups.
Public Quasi-spaces
The Occupy movement has always existed in the “public quasi-spaces” of information transfer; inter-
net, cell phones and news outlets have been integral to the movement’s organizational and support strategy.
But first and foremost OWS and its offshoots have been physical occupations of material space, acted out by
multiple publics who often protest with shared goals but for their own reasons. By closely evaluating two site-
specific examples of encampments, we can begin to first locate the faces of the “multiple publics” found in the
tents on the ground. Second, we can start to evaluate how this movement has the potential to interact, in real
life, with the theoretical underpinnings that speak to the nature of public spaces, and what it takes for public
space to foster civic engagement.
Local Analysis
Two Bay Area examples of occupy encampments show how designed spatial form interacts with vary-
ing social contexts to display two very different incarnations of Habermas’ public sphere. Occupy San
Francisco and Occupy Oakland existed in very different spaces. Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland (renamed
‘Oscar Grant Plaza’ by occupiers) seems ideally designed for occupation and public discourse, whereas Justin
Herman Plaza in San Francisco, (though located in the more relevant financial district), appears to be laid out
in a way that could work for occupation and nothing else. At first glance, the general character of the encamp-
ments followed the logic of their respective spatial designs, but a closer analysis shows that the truth, as
always, is much more complicated.
Justin Herman Plaza is located at the intersection of Market St. and Embarcadero, two of San
Francisco’s main thoroughfares, and near the center of San Francisco’s prime tourist and economic district.
Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Social Text, no. 25/26, 1990, 66-67. Crawford & Cenzatti, “On Public Spaces, Quasi-Public Spaces and Public Quasi-Spaces,” in Modulus, no. 24, 1998, 19.
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Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore 1946
1987
2000
2004
2011
The occupied area is one of three previously
developed lots fronting the ferry building that were
cleared for construction of the Embarcadero Freeway in
the 1960s. When the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989
damaged the freeway, the structure was torn down, the
embarcadero roadway was redesigned, and the three
adjacent city lots were left undeveloped for use as public
space.
The space has undergone dramatic change since
its inception, but has arrived at a design that, for various
reasons, has been largely unused and unsuccessful. It is
a leftover space – a remnant scar of large infrastructure,
open to, but unused by the day-to-day publics that work,
live and shop in adjacent buildings and spaces.
Justin Herman Plaza, occupy area in yellow
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland has less complex origins. First named ‘Civic Center Plaza’, it was
predictably located directly in front of Oakland City Hall nearly one hundred years ago. After the Loma Prieta
earthquake in ’89, several of the adjacent streets were decommissioned and the park design was amended to
encourage a more vibrant pedestrian life.
1914 2010
Justin Herman Plaza, occupy area in yellow Frank Ogawa Plaza
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
Frank Ogawa Plaza has always been a civic space. It was designed for this purpose, and has histori-
cally been used as such. The landscape at Frank Ogawa can be divided into two clear areas, aptly named
“The Commons” and “The Forum”. The Commons is an open raised lawn, unprogrammed and undivided. To
organize the space, Occupy Oakland found it necessary to clearly demarcate paths to dictate where campers
could and could not set up tents.
“THE COMMONS”
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
The Forum, sited directly adjacent to the entrance of city hall, is a large sunken amphitheater with a
seating capacity that numbers in the hundreds. The space could be used for a variety of daytime activities, but
proved to be a perfect venue for the encampment’s general assemblies, which required the ability to serve an
audience of up to 1,000 people - many times the number of people that were actually living in the camp.
The entire camp at Frank Ogawa Plaza was permeable, and the space for general assembly was
obvious and easily accessible.
“THE COMMONS”
“THE FORUM”
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
At Justin Herman Plaza the story is much different. The central lawn, which shrunk in 2011 due to the
addition of bocce ball courts, is visually hidden and topographically buffered from the embarcadero, and is
primarily accessible from only one direction. This orientation dictated the location of the encampment’s
information booth and donation drop-off, and resulted in an encampment that was visually and physically cut-
off from the main pedestrian routes in the area.
The lawn is surrounded by hardscape, and a ramp runs along the raised buffer that served as a main
access to the upper encampment. Circulation into and through the camp was defined by these elements, and
the original open spaces used for general assembly were comprised of leftover spaces after ideal spots for
encampment and services were exhausted. As the camp grew, even these small open spaces diminished, and
general assemblies were relegated to the seat walls and paths that were most difficult to occupy. These
spaces, from the beginning of the encampment, have been notably far from the camp entrance.
Justin Herman Plaza, topographic buffer
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
Though the locations of the restrooms, kitchen and supply tent changed in response to growth of the
encampment, the original, predictably organized layout of Occupy San Francisco remained fairly static.
General assemblies on the scale of Occupy Oakland might never have been possible in San Francisco, and at
first glance it appeared that this fact negated the possibility of an equivalent level of social organization. Frank
Ogawa Plaza has all of the physical ingredients needed to describe a successful democratic civic space, while
Justin Herman Plaza has almost none of them. Did the spatial encouragement of civic debate and rational
discourse in Oakland lead to greater success than the spatial encouragement in San Francisco of mere
discursive interaction?
Justin Herman Plaza, topographic buffer
Justin Herman Plaza, spacial organization
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
While Occupy San Francisco appeared to be “just occupying,” Occupy Oakland, after all, had organized
a city-wide general strike and in less than a week, had mobilized thousands of people to shut down the Port of
Oakland. But it would be false, in this case, to wholly credit spatial determinism for the actions of people. The
designed layout of each plaza may have determined the way in which they were occupied, but it is necessary
to look at demographics and the social/historical context of the two encampments to gain a clear
understanding of how they progressed.
In the beginning weeks of Occupy Oakland, the general assemblies seemed to represent a significant
cross-section of the “99%”. Students, families, people of various religious faiths, and other ‘well respected’
representatives of the middle class were all present. There were indeed multiple publics represented at Oscar
Grant Plaza; people of diverse backgrounds and mixed demands came together regularly in those weeks to
participate in direct democracy. Public support was high, and people were easily organized and mobilized. The
diversity of people reflected broad and diverse public support, not merely for the occupation of space, but for
the cause of the movement. As has been the case with many historic protest occupations in the US, anger at
the state had brought out the masses in Oakland. Support for the Oakland encampment was partially derived
from the People of Oakland’s troubled historical relationship with police, and grew from public outrage over the
serious injury (by the OPD) of an Iraqi war veteran who had been defending the camp.
In Justin Herman Plaza, however, the round-the-clock police presence reflected a different relationship.
Smiling cops wandered the camp and were largely ignored. A conversation with one police officer was
revealing: “why would we need to shut them down? I mean, look at ‘em.” The officer was supportive of the
movement but indifferent about the San Francisco camp, believing that nothing good could be accomplished
without the presence of the (mostly absent) middle-class, yet also believing that no harm was being done.
From an outsider’s perspective, Occupy San Francisco looked to be comprised solely of street kids, druggies
and rainbow kids, mostly white, nearly all young, and apparently harmless.
As the weeks progressed, the encampments underwent striking changes, and it became obvious that
no clear assumptions could be made about who was occupying and where they came from. Public support
waned in Oakland and the character of the camp began to look disorganized. A shooting nearby had scared
away nearly twenty tents, and petty theft appeared to be affecting cohesion. Occupy San Francisco was
making plans to expand and reassert their original message, and they were able to sustain themselves and
organize by interacting socially during the day and by participating in small daily meetings of the general
assembly.
The makeup of each camp was confusing and disorienting. They both felt exclusive and indifferent until
one interacted with any of the inhabitants and it became clear that there was really no group to belong to or be
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
isolated from. Each camp had its share of traveling street people and rainbow kids, and each camp housed a
number of the well educated but recently unemployed. There were anarchists and activists, drug users and a
wide cross-section of the homeless. People came to donate their services and time, people came off the street
to show their support and ask questions, and people came to dance and be merry.
Occupy SF and Occupy Oakland are clearly comprised of multiple publics with diverse interests, even
different political viewpoints. The one thing that united the multiple publics was the belief that they had the right
to be there, occupying public space in order to voice their grievances against the current system. It is this belief
in the right to public space and to use such space for free expression that defines them as representatives of
the 99%.
Rights
The notion of rights in public space is fundamental to the conversation about Occupy. From the move-
ment’s inception, the movement was based on the First Amendment right to peacefully gather and express
discontent with the government. The act of protest has historically happened in public space, where citizens
are lawfully allowed to assemble, but the widespread crackdowns on Occupy camps across the country call
into question the extent of our rights in public space.
Don Mitchell defined democracy as a series of rights and the struggle between groups for different
rights. According to Mitchell, the main contestation is between the state (which upholds and creates rights)
and the public (whom the rights are enacted upon).
Henri Lefebvre argued in the 1990s that people have a “right to the city;” to the ouvre of the city; the
collective work of the city. He wrote that cities were necessarily public, and that groups must struggle with one
another over issues such as access to public space and the rights of citizens. Furthermore, Lefebvre
recognized that the collective ouvre of the city was at risk of being taken over by the economic elite. He
argued that the right to the city was more than access to its products and goods, but that it required more: “The
right to the city manifests itself as a superior form of rights: right to freedom, to individualization in socialization,
to habitat and to inhabit. The right to the ouvre, to participation and appropriation, are implied in the right to the
city.” This economic and power disparity is at the heart of the modern Occupy movement, and protestors have
Don Mitchell, The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (New York: The Guilford Press, 2003), 24-27. Don Mitchell, The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (New York: The Guilford Press, 2003), 18. Henri Lefebvre, Le Droit à la ville, Paris: Anthropos, 1968), 174
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arguably exercised their right to the city by occupying public space.
Mitchell built upon Lefebvre’s argument by stating that if there is a right to the city, it follows that there
is a right to inhabit the city, which is problematic when the right to inhabit the city is fundamentally exclusive.
Currently, in order to possess a right to the city, one must have the financial means to do so. If a person
cannot afford a home, space does not exist for that person to inhabit. He or she must do so in public space.
The right to inhabit the city therefore challenges the assumptions made by private property rights. The Occupy
movement directly challenged these rights (which homeless have always challenged) by performing private
acts in a public forum. Sleeping, eating, and the like are typically acts reserved for private space, yet by
performing these acts in public, Occupiers push the limits on what is allowed in public space. However, state-
sanctioned actions against Occupy protesters and the homeless indicate that public space is not to be used for
such purposes. This un-equal, privileged access to public space is in direct conflict with the First Amendment
rights to free speech that are guaranteed by the Constitution.
By the time of our last visit, the encampments at both San Francisco and Oakland had become places
for homeless people to seek food and medical services, and this was a source of pride for one medic in the SF
camp. The services that weren’t being provided by the state, in this case, were being provided by the encamp-
ments. The occupiers at Justin Herman Plaza maintained a relatively amicable relationship with the state, en-
gaging in talks with city officials which led to agreements on both sides. They picked up their tents periodically
and allowed the grounds to be power washed, and they avoided, for a time, camping on the bocce ball courts.
And while the more strained relationship in Oakland affected the actions of the occupy movement, it did not ap-
pear to immediately affect the encampment’s cleanliness or relationship with the surrounding neighborhood.
By dismantling the encampments at both Frank Ogawa and Justin Herman Plazas, the local
governments of Oakland and San Francisco have demonstrated that the rights to public space are not contin-
gent on peaceful occupation, nor are they contingent on the demographics of the occupiers. Nor is it a
question, as has been argued, of the public health standards at the occupy encampments. Rather, repeated
use of force to eliminate the camps reflects rather the government’s basic belief that occupation of public space
is an illegitimate form of protest.
The speed at which the encampments changed, the diversity of actors from the onset, and the
complexity of each social and historical context makes categorization of the occupy protesters in Oakland and
San Francisco impossible. More importantly, this categorization is unnecessary. On November 14th, tents and
Don Mitchell, The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (New York: The Guilford Press, 2003), 19.
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belongings in Frank Ogawa Plaza were destroyed for the second time by hundreds of police, some clad in riot
gear. Three weeks later the same fate hit the encampment in Justin Herman Plaza, and a week later police
cleared San Francisco’s smaller symbolic camp in front of the Federal Reserve. What matters in this case is
the undetermined question of whether, as in the past, a large enough public will be inspired by the occupations
and angered by their elimination to democratically change the future of rights and political motivations as they
relate to civic public space. Who they are is immaterial compared to the larger question of who they represent,
and when their struggle concerns rights, we can be sure that their struggle represents all of us – the 100%.
This is Not the End
The violent and oppressive crackdowns on occupy protests around the country have indicated that the
fundamental right to gather and protest in public space has been seriously compromised. As encampments
are dismantled and the occupation tactics that sparked the movement are being forcibly shut down, #OWS
lives on in the digital realm.
From its inception, #OWS was conceived as both a digital and physical occupation. The movement’s
symbol, #OWS, represents the hashtag that social media outlet Twitter uses to introduce topics. This
two-pronged approach to protest was used successfully in the Arab Spring uprisings, and is being used by
Occupy to organize large numbers of people in ways that would be impossible without the internet’s
unregulated capacity to communicate and share information. This freedom of the internet, like the right to
public space, is also currently under threat from proposed legislation (Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect
Internet Privacy Act) that analysts argue is a contest between First Amendment rights and property rights, with
many corporations supporting the regulation.
Digital outlets have enabled #OWS to garner much wider support and attention than physical
occupations alone would have facilitated. Images of police brutality, military-style responses and iconic scenes
of protest spread virally across the internet. As of 12/11/2011, a video of police pepper-spraying students at UC
Davis had over 4 million views on Youtube. These images, along with news reports of the widespread use of
excessive force against protesters, served to rally further support for the movement. Large-scale organization
of protests, port-shutdowns, strikes, and actions against banks have relied on digital media to spread the word.
Photos and videos taken during these events spread across the internet and provide platforms for discursive
interactions that occur in the Comments section of news outlets, on Facebook, and on blogs.
The digital protests also provide a platform for a significant part of the population to take part. While
the physical occupation of public space plays an integral role as the frontline of the movement, the majority of
protesters cannot, or are not willing to, sleep in the encampments. Many protesters with jobs, classes,
Arch 219 Fall 2011 Public Space Analysis - Final PaperMargaret Crawford Schuknecht & Tidmore
responsibilities or disabilities are prevented from physically participating in the occupation, but the digital realm
allows them to be active by following updates, posting comments, and otherwise making their voices “heard”.
But the long history of occupation as a form of protest and its resultant successes have proven that there is no
substitute for physical protest and real disruptions to the flow of daily life.
It is far too easy to ignore a protest that does not cause tension and disruptions. There have been
carefully crafted controls set in place since the WTO protests in Seattle that separate and fragment protest-
ers, pushing them to less visible corners of the city where they will cause the least amount of disturbance. It
is crucial that the Occupy movement continue to press for the right to occupy and protest in public space. The
movement has revealed once again the sinister fact that our rights to public space are highly controlled and
limited by the state in ways that were heretofore not thought possible. As Mitchell pointed out, democracy is
at its core a struggle for rights. The state, as guarantor of those rights, must continually be pressed to be open
to the voices of our dissent, and exercising our first amendment right to express this dissent can only occur in
public space.
It follows that the Occupy movement must go beyond simply occupying existing public spaces. As
Henri Lefebvre writes, “A revolution that does not produce a new space has not realized its full potential;
indeed it has failed in that it has not changed life itself, but has merely changed ideological superstructures,
institutions or political apparatuses.” #OWS has so far succeeded in creating temporary public spaces in
privately owned properties like the Oakland Port and Zuccotti Park. Where the people go, public space
follows. The ability of people to create public space simply by their presence has been a powerful force behind
Occupy’s empowering success. The movement needs to continue to grow and make clear that it seeks to be
truly representative of the 99%. It is in the nation’s best interest to follow Occupy through, in the very least, to
the realization of the inalienable freedom to exercise First Amendment rights in public space. The fight for
economic justice is not lost in this battle, but it is a clear prerequisite that the right to fight that battle is
maintained and vehemently protected.
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Donald Nicholson-Smith trans., (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, originally published 1974, translated 1991), 54.
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Bibliography
Alcoff, Linda. “The Problem of Speaking for Others.” Cultural Critique, no. 20, Winter 1991-1992.
Crawford, Margaret and Cenzatti, Marco. “On Public Spaces, Quasi-Public Spaces and Public Quasi-Spaces.” Modulus, no. 24, 1998.
Fraser, Nancy. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.” Social Text, no. 25/26, 1990.
Lefebvre, Henri. Le Droit à la ville. Paris: Anthropos, 1968.
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Donald Nicholson-Smith trans. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, originally published 1974, translated 1991.
Mitchell, Don. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: The Guilford Press, 2003.
*In addition to the above-mentioned sources, this paper drew from conversations and interviews with a number of Occupy protesters at both Oakland and San Francisco.