Monica Elvin

Problematic Situations

Upon looking at Thayer street, there are many observations that can be made about how
the public space is being used. It is difficult to come up with a clear and all-consuming way in
which to define the culture or attitude attached to Thayer Street because it seems to carry with it
many different meanings, for many different people, who use the space in many different ways.
However, it is possible to look at it from different angles which apply different meanings to this
space. As far as legislative means are concerned, Thayer Street is a public byway like any other
sidewalk in the city. However, with the inclusion of shops and street merchants, there are
exceptions to how this space is permitted to be occupied for private use. Upon granting this
exception to the rule of public space being a way to move through space in order to get from
private space to private space, one must look at to what extent these exceptions are being
permitted. Although eateries on Thayer Street are allowed to provide private seating on the
public byway, there are still understandings from the law enforcement that the public space
should not be used by any others for the sake of private use in loitering and the like. This is to
say that the privatization of public space is permitted for some on Thayer Street and not for
others.

Take, for instance, all of the construction for the development of new high-priced
buildings that is taking place in the heart of Thayer Street right now. The construction workers
occupy this space in a way that does not follow the social structural idea of how this public space

is to be used. These individuals do not move through the space unnoticed and un-disturbing of
others on the streets. Rather, these workers are loud and dressed in disheveled working apparel
and often will take breaks along the sidewalks that are used by others in the public space for
mobility. There are others who occupy Thayer Street in the same manner who are held with a
very different perception of how they fit into this public space. The individuals who occupy the
public sidewalks on Thayer Street who wear disheveled clothing and create a privatized
environment by simply occupying a plot of public space are treated very differently from the
construction workers who act in the same manner. Upon spending time on Thayer Street and
observing interactions between people trying to move through the public space and those trying
to privatize it, I noticed a difference in reactions that the passers-by had to the construction
workers and to the individuals occupying the space without a clear purpose.

I found that when confronted with a social interaction by one of the construction workers,
the individual passing by was more likely to respond to the interaction with a socially acceptable
response such as in informal greeting. To give an example, I witnessed many times the
construction workers ask a passer-by how ya doing? This would be met with the response,
Fine, thank you, or something of a similar meaning. There was a very different reaction that
came from people walking through the public space when they were interacted with in a similar
manner but by individuals taking up space with no clearly apparent cause. One man was
repeatedly walked past without a glance in his direction even after being asked how ya doing,
or something relaying the same meaning. The problem that lies under the distinction in these
reactions is a meaning that is not shared between participants in the interaction.

In Ferrells piece on Youth, Crime, and Cultural Space, he looks into how public spaces
are used differently by people and how these uses are perceived to have different meanings to
different individuals. Her first defines that, Cultural space denotes those arenas in which young
people and others construct meaning, perception, and identity, going on to comment on how,
Within relationships of power, inequality, and marginalization, the control of cultural space is
contested. (Ferrell, p. 22). This contestation of spatial use lends to the inability of participants
in use of the public space as to how share meaning. A young man tagging a light pole on the
street might be doing so to leave his mark for personal fame, but in fact he is affecting the
cultural definitions that depict the public space. However, that can be regarded as interesting and
an industrious manipulation of the resources in the public space, or it can be seen as an act of
defiance against a safe social order that exists to address the needs of all people who occupy the
pubic space.

Thayer Street is an example of public space being used by a diverse range of classes, and
yet there is little to no co-mingling. Upon spending some time observing the users of Thayer
Street, one makes the observation that it is used by students of the university, construction
workers, students of the local high schools, merchants, homeless, and police enforcement. Each
of these participants hold a different understanding of how the public space of Thayer Street is to
be used and from these varying meanings can give rise to conflicts in understanding the
intentions of individuals based on outside perceptions. This idea of missed meaning amongst
people occupying public space in different forms and creating cultures within those spaces is
something that is talked about by Ferrell in regards to how it is biased and without groundings
for accurate judgment of people. Ferrell writes that, Right-wing zealots and other publicity

hustlers launch mediated attacks on the popular culture echoes of youthful style rap songs,
music videos, cartoons, and hip-hop films for their alleged promotion of delinquent behavior,
and these media campaigns spin off still other distorted afterimages and amplified
(mis)understandings of crime and delinquency. (Ferrell, p. 21). The problem of defining
certain actions with different meanings creates a tension and adversarial relationship amongst
people who occupy space in different ways from each other. It is through the oppositional
understandings applied to space that creates culture within it.

Ferrell speaks to this in saying, Yet they are also busy negotiating and contesting style.
(Ferrell, p.21). Consider how style comes out of the contestation between people in public
spaces. Graffiti done in places and ways meant to avoid being caught and police wear uniforms
to evoke higher class and power. These are aspects of public life that are irrelevant in the private
sphere of the home. What good would it do to write on a wall in your own home where it can
never be recognized and it does not alter the culture of a public space in a meaningful way? By
the same token, there is no purpose in a police officer sitting at home alone in his police uniform
because there is no delinquent threatening the meaning to which he has placed upon that
private space. Rather than dismissing these deliberate acts by participants in the public sphere as
unruly or militarized, an individual must consider how they are perpetuated by the presence of
one another.

Take how the Brown University students tend to use the space solely for the sake of
transportation purposes, while those who have not been permitted behind the Ivy gates tend to
defy the social rules of public space by staying put and occupying that space for private agenda.

One must ask themselves if this occupying of public space in a private manner is for the sake of
defiance to the social structure of society. This issue seems to be the concern among those who
oppose the use of public spaces for privatization. In his Broken Windows Theory, Wilson and
Kelling address how there is a belief among those in power over the control of determining how
this space is legally used as to the purpose of enforcing control over delinquents and those who
do not abide by the social understanding of public space as a byway. In their assertions to this
issue they claim, What foot-patrol officers did was to elevate, to the extent they could, the level
of public order in these neighborhoods. Though the neighborhoods were predominantly black
and the foot patrolmen were mostly white, this order-maintenance function of the police was
performed to the general satisfaction of both parties. (Wilson, p.2). The law perceives that by
maintaining a sense of control and observation over a space, they are able to satisfy the needs of
the majority of people. However, it can be argued that these police are in fact suppressing the
use of space by those who actually do use it. Look at how most people use Thayer Street. Most
people walk through using Thayer Street as a public byway to get from one private space to the
next. However, there are people such as skateboarding youth, graffiti writers, and those who
have nowhere else to go, who use Thayer Street as cultural hub of community and expression.
Their behavior might be seen as having a meaning of disturbance and harassment even, by the
cops who patrol Thayer Street or the university students who hastily walk by, but that is not the
only meaning that can be attached.

Wilson and Kelling make the argument for people using streets like Thayer Street in a
manner that is not scripted according to socio-structural rules when they write about, the fear
of being bothered by disorderly people. Not violent people, nor, necessarily, criminals, but

disreputable or obstreperous or unpredictable people: panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy

teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed. (Wilson and Kelling, p.6). It is
explicitly stated that these individuals are violent people nor are they criminals. Does the
suppression of one group for the purpose of protecting another group based on biased
perceptions without legal grounding creates the chance to diversify and culture a community?
By transforming public space into something outside the norm of the social structure, the people
described in the quote from Wilson and Kelling are creating a culture and use of space in a
manner that makes it mean something to people other than a way of getting from one place to the
next. In this way, Thayer Street is the perfect example of a socio-structural environment
displaying problematic social interactions due to a lack of shared meaning.

References
Ferrell, Jeff. "Youth, crime, and cultural space." Social Justice (1997): 21-38.
Wilson, James Q., and George L. Kelling. "Broken windows." Atlantic monthly249.3 (1982): 2938.