Download Regina Pedestrian Cultural Corridor

Mariana GALLARDO
Communication processes in the public space
The communication processes as a civic renewal
agent in the public space
Regina Pedestrian Cultural Corridor case study
Mariana GALLARDO MORALES
Communication Sciences Study Center. Social and Political Sciences Faculty. Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México.
Circuito Mario de la Cueva s/n, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510, México, DF.
+5215514856186, [email protected]
Keywords: public space, civic renewal, communication processes.
Abstract
The public space can function as a change and emancipation agent owing to the
communicative interactions that take place within it. This work analyzes a case of
transformation of the public space in the Historic Downtown of Mexico City and its
impact in the social relations.
Introduction
Mexico City is one of the most heterogeneous cities, but also there are undeniable
social gaps. These relations are reflected in the shape of the city: with a horizontal
expansion that insolate the most disadvantaged sectors form the urban vitality and
luxury residential areas that look to get away from the urban chaos. However, there
are still places where the encounter between people from different social sectors is
possible, where social distances fade a little and physical space allows that very
distant sectors interact in equal terms, at least briefly.
This work is based on the idea that the public space can work as a catalyze for social
and communicative interaction because its inherent qualities –mainly the universal
access– allow a symbolic exchange between heterogeneous actors; this way,
contributing to the construction of the individual and collective identity and to a
more democratic society grounded in the participation and argumentation, and
where the involved actors can overcome their initial subjectivity and reach an
agreement founded on a consensus and reflective thinking.
The main goal of this study was to analyze how the public space can function as a
change and emancipation agent owing to the communicative interactions that take
place within it. This objective was complemented with the following ones:
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Communication processes in the public space
To understand the city and the public space as a participatory and civic
process.
To get to know the social relations throughout the spatial relations.
To analyze a case of transformation of the public space in Mexico City, to
define its physical and social conditions and to document the physical
changes and their impact in the social interactions, as well as to diagnose
achievements and failures.
In order to fulfill the objectives, and after define the theoretical framework, a field
research was done in “Regina Pedestrian Cultural Corridor” located at the Historic
Downtown of Mexico City.
The hypotheses that guided this research are the following:
H1. If the conditions of the public space are favorable, the intersubjective
interactions will increment.
H2. The communicative interaction in the public space strengthens the
community and the individual subject.
H3. The relationships in the public space reflect the values of a society.
Each or the variables of the hypothesis was analyzed regarding Regina corridor. The
research was qualitative and the techniques used were bibliographic documentation,
collection of demographic data, participant observation and interviews.
The city: a social construction
The city arises as a result of the social and production relations expressed in the
geography of the human settlements. The infrastructure is altered in order to serve
efficiently to the existing relations; the cities are made up by the life preformed
within them (Rizo, 2004, p.214). Through the uses, contributions and manifestations
of the inhabitants, a city acquires its identity.
In accordance with the above, this study considers that the city is made up of
physical infrastructure as well as the social relations established within the cities, a
cultural infrastructure that comprises, among other things, legislations, economy,
policies, cultural conventions and language (Pietsch, 2010).
The cities, as a result of the evolution of society, are a communicative phenomenon,
as they facilitate the emergence of new forms of interaction, dialogue and conflict.
François Choay understands the city as a static support of three ways of
communication: exchanges of commodities, of information and of emotions (Choay,
2009, p.206). The city is a communicative space because of its capability to
establish or cut off the communications and the exchange between the actors (Rizo,
2004, p.156).
Acknowledged the foregoing, it is possible to assert that the city is a producer of
citizenship; this is, the possession of political, civic and social rights.
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In the city and, to a great extent, in the public space, the fundamental rights of the
citizen are displayed because these places assure the condition of equality as they
work as an organizing principle of social integration, redistribution of the capital
(economic, cultural and social) and political will.
The citizens give value to the city when they get involved in the construction and
urban management, so the urban development plans should favor the aspirations and
interests of the citizens.
Public Space, a space for democracy
Jordi Borja sets down three basic dimensions of the public space: the political, the
social and the material or physical. The first imply the universal access and,
consequently, the equality and plurality of its participants. The social dimension
entails the permanent interaction between the participants, so a shared reality is
built. And, finally, the material dimension is the physical reality that enables the
previous dimensions (Borja & Muxí, 2000).
Quintessentially, the public spaces depict the cultural and social meaning of a city,
as places of venue or meeting they are the stage of the citizenship and sociality
(Martínez, 2003 p.5).
The contact with other people generates an information offer about the social
environment that allows the subject to develop himself and to establish bonds with
the space and the people with whom it is shared.
The opportunities of meeting and encounter allow a possibility to attain social
processes and therefore strengthen the community and the democratic processes.
The more frequent the encounters, the quality and level of the signification will
increase.
A city that benefits the public space reflects a democratic society. As Hannah Arendt
asserts, the public space is an isonomy, in other words, a place where, in legal terms,
everyone is equal, a space of freedom and plurality, open the unexpected act
(d’Entrèves, 2014).
Furthermore, the quality of the public space must be taken in account as the physical
conditions beneficiate the social interactions. The mere intersections between the
streets are not enough, it is necessary to create and pursue quality public spaces
where the full exercise of citizenship is possible and where the inherent functions of
the public space could be accomplished.
The works of Jan Gehl and William H. Whyte provide some indicators of the
qualities that the public spaces must have to beneficiate the social interaction; as the
relationship of the space with the street, the sunlight and shadows, places to sit, trees
and green areas, commerce and the triangulation of all the factors. Is important to
remember that the “forms always convey values and the aesthetics is also an ethic.
Underestimate the public space, its quality, its beauty and its adaptation to the
preferences and aspirations of the users, beyond its specific function, is to set aside
the people and contribute to the social exclusion” (Borja, 2000, p.23).
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Communication processes in the public space
Action and speech in the public space
For comprehending the social nature and the interaction processes performed in the
public space it was used the Symbolic Interaction Theory, developed by Herbert
Mead and Herbert Blumer, that holds that the individuals, in their personal and
collective roles, interpret and define the others’ actions without restraining
themselves just to react to them, their answer is not directly elaborated as a
consequence of the others’ actions, it is based on the meaning that is confered to the
actions (Blumer, 1982, p.59).
The symbolic interaction –in this case within the public space– increases the
reflective process, a critic activity, where the individual re-signifies itself throughout
the others’ actions. In other words, the subject rebuilds itself as individual, as
society and as citizen by facing or confronting actions that because of their
heterogeneity –characteristic of the urban life– force him to reinterpret the objects.
Furthermore, the subjects make a symbolic interpretation of the public space in
accordance to particular situations and the others’ interpretations. So the
communicative interaction allows to understand the physical surrounding and to
provide of sense and meaning our experience in the world (Rizo, 2004, p.154), thus
the use of places and spaces is an expression of symbols and emotions.
In addition, the Communicative Action Theory, proposed by Jürgen Habermas,
holds that when the symbolic interaction become more linguistic, this is, based on a
grammatical convention, there is an evolution of the society because it is achieved a
higher state of rationalization.
To the extent that the consensus are reached through an argumentative discourse that
replace the impositions and manipulations of the political power, it is accomplished
a rationalization of the system and the life-world. This is the reason why Habermas
(1999, p.208) asserts that the democratic forms are the result of the implementation
of ways of generating a discourse in the political will. Therefore, the democratic
ideas are a consensus achieved through a communication process whereby the
society reaches a more deep conscience of itself (Habermas, 1999, p.118).
Habermas accounts that the crisis of democracy is the result that the social means
that should facilitate the exchanges and the display of the communicative rationality
have been autotomized; in other worlds, they make circulate information but hamper
the communicative relation and the interpretation activities of the individuals and
the social groups (Mattelart, 1997, p.97).
Civic renewal in the public space
Having in account the previous theories, this investigation asserts that the public
space could work as a social dispositive that facilitates the communicative
interaction and, consequently, the deliberation and reflection.
As a result of the universal access, the pubic space is suitable to the communicative
and social interaction, it is a frame for the symbolic interaction, where because of
the confrontation of interpretations between individuals and groups, there is a
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redefinition of objects, concepts, relations and patterns of behavior (Blumer, 1982,
p.59).
Nevertheless, the contemporary city, accordingly to the neoliberal economic system,
privileges the physical and material aspects of the city over the social relations, as
well as the exchange-value over the use-value; so it encourages a retreat to the
private, in the economy as in the social relations.
The space expresses a social order, hierarchies and social distances (Bourdieu, 2010,
p.120), the appropriation capability is a result of the economic, cultural and social
capital owned by the individuals. When the market economy leads the logic, the
economic capital will determine and restrict the uses and accesses. By contrast, in
the democratic public space, the cultural and social capital is more important; in the
public space the power of appropriation derive from the capability of speech and the
relations established though it.
Change and resistance in the public space. Case study: Regina Pedestrian
Cultural Corridor, Mexico City Historic Downtown.
With this theoretical framework, the hypotheses proposed were confronted in
“Regina Pedestrian Cultural Corridor” in the Historic Downtown of Mexico City.
With the aim of analyze each of the variables of the hypotheses, different techniques
of social research were used: it was developed a participant observation, open
interviews to the users, residents and key informants, collection of demographic data
and bibliographic documentation.
Regina corridor is the result of an urban intervention conducted in 2007 by the
Ministry of Public Works and Services of Mexico City in partnership with the
private sector that aimed the recovery of the public space and the improvement of
the life quality and the urban structure through different actions like making the
street pedestrian, paving, lighting, installation of benches, facade renovation and
boosting of the trade and cultural activities.
During the 20th century and until the beginning of the 21st, Regina Street featured a
notable degradation and it was considered one of the most dangerous of the Historic
Downtown. Thanks to the intervention, Regina has become one of the most
attractive landmarks of the area.
The intervention comprises little less than one kilometer and is divided in four
sections as the perpendicular streets cross the corridor. Even all of them share some
physical qualities, each segment displays a particular dynamic, strongly influenced
by the commercial activities of the perpendicular streets.
Nowadays, Regina lodges eighteen monumental historic buildings, more than
ninety-four businesses, a playground, a church, a home for the elderly and two
cultural centers, one devoted to contemporary art and the other to the memory of the
victims of the state crimes in Latin America. The historic condition of the street
preserves the original housing and the traditional low-income dwellings,
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nevertheless the economic and cultural display, aftereffect of the revitalization
works, have attracted young people and foreigners with a higher income.
Public Space Conditions
Along Regina corridor, there are buildings going from one to five floors, the
physical conditions and maintenance of the buildings is diverse. Mostly, the lower
floors are intended to commercial activities and the upper ones to housing, so a
balanced land use is archived.
Accordingly to demographics, almost all of the households have access to basic
services –electricity, water, drainage– and telecommunication services. The
residents of the dwellings of the street have a medium to low-income but, as
previously mentioned, the intervention has attracted higher income residents. Is
important to mention that even there is an unavoidable process of gentrification, it is
held back because most of the residents are owners of its dwellings.
Figures 1 to 4. Façades of the buildings along Regina Pedestrian Cultural Corridor.
The most popular kind of local businesses are bars and restaurants, before the
intervention there were few but the trade has adjusted to the demand. The restaurants
serve to a wide variety of clients: from medium-low income workers to a higher
profile clientele. Nevertheless, most of the residents do not consume in those places
because they find them expensive.
Figures 6 to 7. Restaurants and bars at Regina Pedestrian Cultural Corridor.
The intervention project considered the renovation of the urban equipment as
lamppost, benches, gardens, fountains, sports facilities and a playground. Currently,
the equipment is in good condition, however there are stretches of the street with
shortcomings, as lack of lighting or cleaning issues.
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Regarding the cultural offer, the two cultural centers offer a program open to the
public. As well, occasionally in the playground there are activities and workshops
for kids and teenagers.
The playground is one of the most popular places of the corridor. It offers an indoor
soccer court, area for children, benches, tables and bathrooms. The place is attended
all day long, not only by children and their parents, all kind of people stop by for a
rest or for having lunch.
A city for everyone: diversity of uses, diversity of users.
In an area of five round kilometers there is a wide range of goods and services, such
as schools, health centers, food markets and shopping centers. Also, there are
different possibilities of urban mobility: metro stations, bus lines, private car access
and parking lots, public shared bicycles and bicycle lanes. However, the pedestrian
access from the west could be an unsafe spotlight to vulnerable groups and a site for
vandalism, as the ‘Plaza de las Vizcainas’ is very lonely and neglected.
The governing axis of the transformation project was the possibility of mixed uses,
as the area presents buildings suitable for housing and also for commerce with an
equilibrated density.
The flow and heterogeneity of users varies along the week and time of the day. On
weekday mornings there are performed a great deal of fixed activities, as delivery of
products and services to the businesses, at noon the people go out to lunch and small
children go with their mothers to the playground, a little later students begin to fill
the bars. But the most active time is the afternoon from Thursday to Saturday, when
Regina works as a meeting and entertaining space, mostly for young people.
The multiple possibilities of access by different means of transport as well as from
different parts of the city, added to the extensive commercial offer and the centrality
condition of the Historic Downtown, contribute to a confluence of heterogeneous
users.
One of the factors that has changed the most and that has transformed the street
dynamics is the safety, as before of the intervention Regina was a street which
presented high crime rates, and accordingly to some of the interviewees some of the
offenders where residents of the low-income housings of the street. This reinforces
the notion that the public space does not causes the danger, rather, it is a place where
the social problems become evident, as the social injustice and the inequity (Borja,
2000, p.123), and the idea that holds Pierre Bourdieu (2010, p.123) that when a
place degrades its inhabitants, they degrade it in response.
Even nowadays the corridor has some devises that contribute to safeness, as
illumination and security guards, what has contributed the most to reduce the crime
are the people in the street and the social networks between the users.
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Figures 8 to 10. Diversity of uses and users in Regina corridor.
A place of encounter
The transformation of Regina Street in a pedestrian corridor has brought into contact
different actors. The informal interactions in the corridor have been beneficiated
through the quotidian encounter; this has forged bonds between the actors. As Jane
Jacobs mentions: “The sum of such casual, public contact at a local level, most of it
fortuitous […] is a feeling for the public identity of people, a web of public respect
and trust, and a resource in time of personal or neighborhood need” (Jacobs, 1961,
p.56).
One of the merchants mentions: “Even I have worked here all my life, since the
intervention I have meet more neighbors, they are not strong relationships but we
meet each other and share information about the street. Before the intervention we
were forgotten.”
Likewise, the fixed activities and formal meetings have been beneficiated. Even the
fixed activities were made regardless the physical conditions of the space; the social
and communicative processes have become more complex since the intervention.
This could be observed in the playground, where the mothers have created bonds
between them.
Regina has become a space where the encounter and simultaneity are much more
likely. The accessibility, centrality, monumentality and the commercial and cultural
offer, plus the diversity of uses, have made of Regina an important destination for
different social groups.
Figures 11 to 13. Activities preformed in Regina corridor.
Although that when the symbolic interaction become more linguistic there is an
evolution of the society because it is achieved a higher state of rationalization, the
non-verbal communication in Regina plays a fundamental role as it contains codes
of uses, access and appropriation of the space.
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In Regina the non-verbal communications are mainly between the merchants and the
neighbors. In the public space, the non-verbal communication implies to appear to
the others and to share the acts; appear to the others is to claim the presence and
condition as a member of the society.
On the other hand, about the verbal communication in the corridor, maybe the most
valuable one is a result of the plurality of actors, one of the interviewees mentions:
“As new people have come, the themes of conversation have changed. Before we
only talked about sports, now we talk about other things, as politics.” This
remembers Hannah Arendt thought about that the plurality and heterogeneity of
users is what assures the difference of perspectives, thus create new realities and
relationships.
Regina. A social space
The life within a society contributes to a never-ceasing re-signification of the
objects, and when the actors are heterogeneous the necessity of re-signification is
higher as the subject faces different perspectives of the world that question its own
perceptions. The identity is built socially and throughout the life in-group the
individual is capable of reflect about himself and to give a meaning to the actions
and objects.
In the analyzed case there has been a process of reconstruction of the identity. The
physical changes have contributed to dignify the space and, consequently, to the
appreciation and appropriation of the space by the residents. Also, the diversity that
the space congregates leads the users to the re-signification of the objects and
actions.
Nevertheless, it is also notable the strong identity ties between some the old
residents whom express a rejection to the new actors with hostile attitudes and even
violence. This could be understood by the fact that before the intervention Regina
was a space of segregation and segmentation; even the conditions have changed, the
modification of behavior is part of a process that requires time. This situation is
comparable with the studies by Robert Putnam that hold that in short-term the
diversity tend to reduce the social solidarity and social capital, however in long-term
it contributes to significant cultural, economic and development benefits (Putnam,
2006, p.141).
Although the possibility of political participation and involvement in decision
making related to the street are still limited for the neighbors, the intervention has
allowed a space of dialogue between government, society and neighbors, and even
this last ones are not the ones who make the decisions, they are informed and
consulted. And, even slowly, the conditions of the corridor have also promoted the
relationship between the neighbors, thus archiving empathy and mutual recognition
between them. In this regard Richard Sennett’s points out that the bonds in a
community cannot be formed instantly, it is required time, but the city must offer the
possibility of meeting and encounter, a porosity of the territory, an incomplete form,
as well as a narrative possibility, so the space become democratic, not in a legal term
but as a physical experience (Sennett, 2006, p.4).
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Conclusions
The physical interventions are not enough because the social relations are much
more complex. The physical interventions do not increase the interactions, otherwise
they intensify the relations that already exist and facilitate new encounters. More
than aspire to fulfill a series of conditions, the interventions in the public space
should look for a triangulation between the possible conditions, in a way that the
existing conditions complement each other and if there is a deficiency they
equilibrate.
This was noticeable in the first part of the street that, even shares the same material
qualities of the rest of the street, presents a very different social dynamic: the flow is
lower, there is not commercial diversification and it does not work as a place of
transit, and, consequently, these conditions affect otters, as the perception of
security.
Furthermore, the possibility of different uses and activities in a pleasant surrounding
gives the users a sense of comfort, empowerment and choice of action, so they are
more willing to establish intersubjective interactions.
Even so, in the analyzed case, the communicative action is not always consumed
because the symbolic interaction does not always leads to an argumentative
discussion. Despite there is an intersubjective recognition many of the actions are
still oriented to egocentric outcomes and to a short-term rationality. An example of
this in Regina corridor is the case of the “self-destruction” of diversity with the
proliferation of bars and a disloyal competition between them.
Regarding the contribution of the public space to the formative function, the
behavior of the children in the playground was interesting, as the kids presented
changes of behavior and in their verbal language accordingly to the presence of
other kids. Throughout the games the children learn to cooperate and negotiate,
situations that imply reflective thinking, and they also generate a feeling of mutual
identity, of nearness and shared experiences with the other children.
Nevertheless, it is important to mention that some of the residents perceive that the
intervention was imposed by the government without taking them in account, so
they express their discontent through apathy, carelessness and disinterest. The
individuals degrade the space because it highlights its dispossession and
marginalization of the political and economic system.
If we depart form the idea that the organization of the public space is a reflection of
the societal discourse, the discourse that states Regina corridor indicates shortages,
inequality, lack of legitimacy and of appropriation, but it also enunciates a new
opportunity to redefine a new reality, new objectives, relationships and patters of
behavior. In Regina corridor the political action is expressed by the possibility of
appearance to the others, so the day-to-day actions begin to make sense.
Moreover, the fulfillment of the public space demands the participation and
responsibility of the citizens. For a project of transformation of the public space to
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be successful, in addition to the technical and practical considerations, it should be
constructed as a participatory process, otherwise the space lost its democratic public
character: the possibility of presentation and representation
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