{"id":2690,"date":"2011-10-19T18:31:14","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T18:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/?p=2690"},"modified":"2026-03-23T13:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T17:56:07","slug":"public-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/2011\/10\/public-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Public? Space"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">No matter what you think of the expanding <a href=\"http:\/\/occupywallst.org\/\">Occupy Wall Street <\/a>movement, the <a href=\"http:\/\/wearethe99percent.tumblr.com\/\">99 percenters <\/a>have staked out a share of the public space along with the public conversation.<\/p>\n<p>But is it really public space? Zuccotti Park, like many urban parks in other cities and in Montgomery County, is privately-owned public space, generated in exchange for increased zoning density, which equals increased leasable space.<\/p>\n<p>The land remains in private ownership, and though there are rules set by the public agency for its use, there are always questions about political protests, leafletting, and canvassing.<\/p>\n<p>Amid our discussions of bricks vs. pavers and setbacks vs. build-to lines, it&#8217;s important to recognize that territory staked out in public spaces is not only physical. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/10\/16\/sunday-review\/wall-street-protest-shows-power-of-place.html?_r=1&amp;ref=opinion\">Space takes on meaning <\/a>when we act in it, whether that action is Shakespeare in the park or march through Selma.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">No matter what you think of the expanding Occupy Wall Street movement, the 99 percenters have staked out a share of the public space along with the public conversation.<\/p>\n<p>But is it really public space? Zuccotti Park, like many urban parks in other cities and in Montgomery County, is privately-owned public space, generated in exchange for increased zoning density, which equals increased leasable space.<\/p>\n<p>The land remains in private ownership, and though there are rules set by the public agency for its use, there are always questions about political protests, leafletting, and canvassing.<\/p>\n<p>Amid our discussions of bricks vs. pavers and setbacks vs. build-to lines, it&#8217;s important to recognize that territory staked out in public spaces is not only &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/2011\/10\/public-space\/\" class=\"read-more\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[299,20],"tags":[309,310,312,311],"class_list":["post-2690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-places","category-public-spaces","tag-occupy-wall-street","tag-pops","tag-private-open-space","tag-public-open-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2690"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11150,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions\/11150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}