Abstract
One of the issues regarding public space is unsurprisingly of financial nature: it is expensive. This relates not only to the acquisition of land and the construction of infrastructures, but also to their maintenance and occasional renovation. In a situation in which there are on the one hand deepening budget issues, and on the other hand increasing expectations expressed by a wellinformed public opinion, local authorities continue to invent mechanisms through which public space, or publicly accessible space can be provided by the private sector. In some cases, the land is given over to the public, in others it remains in private ownership. These strictly quantitative requirements of space as land surface are supplemented by qualitative measures including a notion of use, like access to strategic view points, sports facilities, rights of way, waterways or investment in public art. Depending on local market conditions and prevailing political paradigms, cities can insist on certain features in return for the granting of building permits, or more frequently offer incentives for owners to embrace their ideas or propose their own ones. How do these mechanisms work, what are the issues for implementation and how to evaluate their impact on the creation of public realm? The authors present several options, and explore the opportunities of informed global comparisons through the experimental conception of an internetbased search and analysis tool.