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Skateboarding: It’s role in the creation and destruction of public space.

by Fabien Piesakowski-ONeill

Does public space exist?

The idea of public space has long been contested with a considerable amount of literature arguing over its role and definition. Two of the key views set below provide a context for considering the inter-action between skateboarding and public space and the related issues of access, exclusion and ownership.

1. Public space should be ‘physically and psychologically accessible’ allowing all citizens to access it and conflict should be allowed to happen as part of this.

(Loukaitou, 1998).

2. Public space has never truly existed because someone is always excluded, it requires everyone to be equal (Deutsche, 1996).

From this has emerged a third view: 3. Public space is created through a constant struggle between those that want to control it and those that want it to facilitate unmediated interaction. Neither is right or wrong and someone is always excluded. (Mitchell, 1995) An overriding factor is the increasing commodification and control of public space and this literature review considers the arguments relating to this through the act of skateboarding in contemporary spaces whether these spaces are public or not.

Does the commodification of space destroy or create public space?

A central theme throughout skateboarding literature is that contemporary public spaces are no longer public and instead, as posited by Debord (1967), are becoming places of order, control and spectacle centred around capitalism and consumption.

(Howell 2001) (Borden,2001) (Vivoni, 2009) (Nameth, 2006) This in turn leads to the mechanics of consumerism; including attracting customers, facilitating commercial transactions and maintaining real estate values, dictating who is included or excluded. Money allows participation, whilst those unable to ‘pay’ or are seen as ‘not conforming’ are considered a threat and become marginalized or physically excluded. This is not public space. (Walzer, 1986).

Consumption is not only to do with money. Gottdiener (1985) argues consumption can also occur through the use of space in its intended way, and the act of simply participating in the intended way is to consume.

Public space and skateboarding A key writer on the topic of skateboarding and public space Borden (2001), supports the argument that contemporary public spaces are no longer public, using the example of skateboarder’s interpretation of space.

Skateboarders contest the control of space through interpreting it in their own way.

They consume space through its ‘use value’ rather than its ‘exchange’ value but do not offer financial gain (Borden, 2001). As a result, they are seen as having no transactional value, so are often excluded and designed out as opposed to being chased out, because, “this is counterproductive to regulating behaviour” (Howell, 2001, p11).

Instead defensive architecture is used to “create exclusionary spaces that appear public to the selected users; it is used to simulate a public sphere” (Howell, 2001 p3).

A view also supported by Borden (2001), Nameth (2006) and Vivoni (2009). Howell explains this in more depth in ‘the poetics if security’ (2001), highlighting the use of ‘pig ears’, metal clips which prevent skaters from performing tricks on ledges or benches. Noting that these are ‘defensive architecture features’ designed to provide hidden control which Howell calls the poetics of security and leads many to assume spaces to be public when in fact they are not.

He goes on to say that “if it were made plain that exigencies of capital quietly determine nearly every aspect of every space that people inhabit many would not accept it” (Howell, 2001, p3). This control is only made apparent through skateboarding and other (deemed) undesirable groups and activities which do not offer an exchange value such as the homeless (Savicic and Savic, 2014) and teenagers (Valentine, 1996).

Figure 1. A skater at St Pauls, interpreting the space not as it was intended (OldSkoolPaul, 2020)

It is public…. but only for some It is argued by Deutsche (1996) that for everyone to be included everyone would need to be equal which cannot exist in a capitalist space, this dichotomy underlies the struggle between those that want to control public space and those that want it to facilitate unmediated interaction. Capitalist space can be public but not for everyone (Mitchell, 1995).

Skateboarding can be seen as an activity that excludes others causing conflict “with other users or owners” (Jenson, Swords and Jeffries, 2012, p372). In contrast Borden (2001) argues it can help create public space. Snyder (2017) believes that the exclusion of skateboarders happens because they are misunderstood by society, and if they were understood they could coexist alongside other users to create public space. Snyder notes that where society “has not been taught to disapprove of them, passers-by often become an audience, actively cheering the performance of skaters” (p207). This leads on to Howells (2001) argument that this lack of understanding is a direct result of public space being simulated, which teaches society to believe skateboarders are unwelcome.

Howell (2001) believes that if we recognise space as not public but capitalist, then skateboarding creates public space even if for a brief moment by interpreting space outside of its intended use, for something that is not consumption. “Skateboarding challengers observers to examine their preconceptions of what and who a city is for… it gives lie to the simulation and reintroduces conflict’” (p21). Loukaitou (1998) supports this, believing that conflict is a feature of public space, and without conflict space becomes simulated.

Figure 2. Benches at Monument Street, London. Designed to exclude skateboarders(Marshalls, 2020)

Skateboarding, consuming or creating public space?

Skaters don’t create public space they consume it: Snyder (2017) posits a different point of view: That by spending money in surrounding establishments “Ironically, skaters, even as they misuse a space, are also consumers” (p200) and “professional skaters use public space for profit,” albeit in a different way than intended (p205), “their creative interpretations of public space earn them subcultural capital, which they transfer into real capital” (p199) via selling a brand, sponsorships or media. This supports the argument that public spaces have become spaces of control focussed on consumption (Debord, 1967). And raises the question; is skateboarding participating in creating capitalist simulated space, or is it creating public space, as Borden (2001) and Howell (2001) argue, by bringing its own interpretation to it?

The very act (skateboarding) that Howell (2001) saw as creating public space could instead be destroying it by supporting its function as a consumer space through skaters spending money or creating ‘real capital’ through their activity.

Howell (2005) argues that public space is not public but capitalist and skateboarders can be unknowingly used as commodities to help create it. At LOVE Park skateboarders were used to market and police the space (free of charge), to exclude those who provided no economic benefit (the homeless) “they delivered LOVE Park to the city of Philadelphia in a new , more marketable form producing a marketable image for the city – all while deterring the presence of homeless” (p41). Having achieved this the skateboarders have now been excluded themselves. This example is contrary to Howells previous observation in the poetics of security (2001) that skaters create public space through interpreting it in their own way, as by interpreting it in their own way they facilitated the creation of a capitalist space. But this was part of the changing perception of skateboarders as having exchange value and becoming a more accepted part of society.

Savicic and Savic (2014) argues that the displacement of undesirables such as the homeless is destroying the notion of space being public as it reduces opportunities for interaction. Whereas Mitchell (1995) argues that inclusive public space cannot be achieved because the exclusion of one group can make another feel welcome which was demonstrated in the case of Love Park. Jenson, Swords and Jeffries (2012) expand on the idea that skateboarders can hold an exchange value saying “they create a youthful buzz which many cities crave as a part of regeneration” (p373), and suggests that “rather than legislate or design out skaters” (p387) cities should aim to include them.

The acceptance and commodification of skateboarding and the resulting spaces they are given can in turn become simulated spaces which excludes others as in the case of Miyashita Park, Shibya, (Dixon, 2016), whereby Shibuya Ward Government and NIKE had been in secret negotiations to construct a skatepark within the park, a public space. It was their intention to displace the long-term homeless refuge in the park and to control skateboarders who were viewed as a nuisance. Hence what is portrayed as making a public space more public through the addition of a skatepark is in fact creating a commodified and simulated space aiming to exclude both skateboarders and the homeless.

Figure 3. Commodification of skateboarding (VOUGE, 2020)

Conclusion From the inception of street skateboarding in the 1970’s to the present skateboarders have gone from being an ‘undesirable’ that offer only a use value to a ‘desirable’ with an exchange value and the literature review highlights different aspects of this journey in relation to the functions of public space.

The literature review charts how skateboarders have gone from being an excluded group as they only offered a use value and not an exchange value, interpreting space in their own way to create public space without being part of its simulated consumption (Borden, 2001). To developing an exchange value themselves as they have become commodified or consumers of simulated capitalist public space. (Howell 2001) (Jenson, Swords and Jeffries, 2012) (Snyder, 2017).

However, what the literature does not address is the fluctuating dynamics between agency and commodification that skateboarding has gone through and how this could be used to create public spaces that are less reliant on the capitalist dynamic.

Further research should be conducted on how this process could be used to benefit the more marginalised groups, particularly the homeless, to increase their agency within space as part of society.

References Loukaito-Sideris, Anastasia and Tribid Banerjee. (1998). Urban Design Downtown.

Berkley: University of California Press. p301 Deutsche, Rosalyn. (1996) Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics. Available at: https://monoskop.org/images/0/0a/Deutsche_Rosalyn_Evictions_Art_and_Spatial_P olitics.pdf. (Accessed 24/04/2020) Don Mitchel. (1995). The End of Public Space? People’s Park, Definitions of the Public, and democracy. Annuals of the Association of American Geographers, pp108133.

Available at: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00045608%28199503%2985%3A1%3C108%3ATEOPSP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M .

(Accessed 24/04/2020) Guy Debord. (1967). The society of the spectacle. Available at: https://libcom.org/files/The%20Society%20of%20the%20Spectacle%20Annotated%2 0Edition.pdf. (Accessed 24/04/2020) Ocean Howell. (2001). The Poetics of Security: Skateboarding, Urban Design and the New Public Space. P3 Ian Borden. (2001). Skateboarding, Space and the city: Architecture and the Body.

Franscisco Vivoni. (2009). Spots of Spatial Desire: Skateparks, Skateplazas and Urban Politics. Journal of Sport and Social Issues Volume 33 Number 2. Pp130-149.

Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0193723509332580.

(Accessed 24/04/2020) Jeremy Németh. (2006). Conflict, Exclusion, Relocation: Skateboarding and Public Space. Journal of Urban Design, 11:3, pp297-318. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13574800600888343. (Accessed 24/04/2020) Michael Walzer, (1986). Public space: pleasures and costs of urbanity, Dissent, 33, pp.470-475. Available at: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/pdfs/walzerurban.pdf.

(Accessed 24/04/2020) Mark Gottdiener (1985). The Social Production of Urban Space. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zixMAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7& dq=gottdiener+the+social+production+of+space&ots=CVv6NRcoyB&sig=zdUN3OXOy6Creoilxf0vHDD0ik#v=onepage&q=gottdiener%20the%20social%20production%2 0of%20space&f=false. (Accessed 24/04/2020) Gordan Savicic, Selena Savic. (2014). Unpleasant Design, Desing Out Unwanted Behaviour.

Available at: https://www.academia.edu/7475506/Unpleasant_Design._Designing_Out_Unwanted _Behaviour. (Accessed 24/04/2020) Gill Valentine. (1996). Children should be seen not heard: the production and transgression of adults’ public space, Urban Geography, 17(3), pp205-220.

Adam Jenson, Jon Swords and Michael Jeffries. (2012). The Accicdental Youth Club: Skateboarding in Newcaslte-Gateshead. P373. Journal of Urban Design, 17:3, pp371388. Available at https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2012.683400. (Accessed 24/04/2020) Gregory J. Snyder. (2017). Skateboarding LA: Inside Professional Street Skateboarding.

P199, p200, p205, P207.

Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1pwt99c.13. (Accessed 24/04/2020) Ocean Howell. (2005). The “Creative Class” and the Gentrifying City: Skateboarding in Philadelphia’s Love Park. P41. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40480609.

(Accessed 24/04/2020) Dwayne Dixon. (2016). Posing LA, performing Tokyo: photography and race in skateboarding’s global imaginary. P206.

Table of figures Figure 1. A skater at St Pauls, interpreting the space not as it was intended (OldSkoolPaul, 2020) ................................................................................................. 2 Figure 2. Benches at Monument Street, London. Designed to exclude skateboarders, they simulate a public sphere for seated consumers (Marshalls, 2020) ..................... 3 Figure 3. Commodification of skateboarding (VOUGE, 2020) .................................... 5