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Clough, Nathan L.

Geography

2005

MA

The academic literature on public places tells a story of decline and loss, positioning urban public space as, essentially, a thing of the past. At the same time, new hybrid commercial/public spaces, such as business improvement districts, are often portrayed as the public spaces of the future. These hybrid spaces are also portrayed, conversely, as an assault on publicness, and a mean simulation of that which they replace. However, very little empirical research has been done to address how these hybrid spaces affect the practice of political activism within their boundaries. In this thesis, I demonstrate how the Church Street Marketplace, a business improvement district in Burlington Vermont, stifles some types of political expression that it views as contrary to the interests of the Marketplace. The stifling affects of the Church Street Marketplace are, however, contested through a variety of tactics by activists, who use the street as a political space. Qualitative methods including participant observation, and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Marketplace officials, political activists, merchants, and police illustrate the competing views of Church Street, political speech, and the nature of the public.