Xiaohui Chen
Revisiting Publicness: Navigating Spatial Justice in Public Open Spaces Under Private Development
This thesis focuses on the publicness of public open spaces under private development (POSPD), examining how privatisation impacts the public nature of urban spaces. By examining POSPDs in two distinct contexts - China, where fast urbanisation is state-driven, and New Zealand, which has a longer, more regulated privatisation process - the research uncovers how different social groups perceive and experience these spaces. It moves beyond traditional critiques of privatisation, which emphasise the loss of publicness due to commercialisation. Instead, it adopts a more sophisticated approach, employing spatial justice as an analytical tool to investigate the multi-dimensional impacts of privatisation on publicness. The main objectives are to examine how privatisation shapes publicness, compare social group perceptions, and investigate exclusionary mechanisms within POSPDs' design, development, use, and management. The theoretical basis of the study is spatial justice, which considers both the fair distribution of spatial resources and the equity of processes governing space. By integrating spatial justice into the assessment of publicness, this thesis proposes a new framework for understanding the complex publicness of POSPDs. This framework is then adapted and validated through empirical research in China and New Zealand. Employing a comparative case study method, the research utilises field observations, surveys, and interviews to explore how different social groups experience POSPDs. The thesis concludes with public policy recommendations aimed at fostering more just and inclusive public open spaces, while addressing the challenges encountered by various social groups within the context of urban privatisation.
Supervisors
Dr Crystal Olin & Professor Claire Freeman
Qualifications
THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD - Master of Arts (Urban Design) - 2020
HUNAN AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY - Bachelor of Engineering (Landscape Architecture) - 2019
Awards
WELLINGTON DOCTORAL SCHOLARSHIP - Victoria University of Wellington. (2024)
PAMELA MANN PRIZE - The University of Sheffield. (2020)
SCHOOL-LEVEL OUTSTANDING GRADUATES - Hunan Agricultural University. (2019)