Clarifying the Place of Urban Public Space in Two Concepts of Cultural Consumption and Social Production of Space

Critical attitude to capital hegemony on human relations in contemporary society, when it is linked to space, enters into urban studies. From this perspective, in the urban study of space, as a problematic concept, two categories of literature of (social) production and (cultural) consumption of space can be distinguished, which seems to have been developed most of all under the two disciplines of cultural studies and political economy. Also, the public space, which is at the center of urban design studies, has been mixed with a kind of critical understanding in recent years. This is where the interdisciplinary nature of urban design has forced it to pay attention to the literature of production and consumption of space for a deeper understanding of the transformation of public spaces in the midst of the conflict between the forces of power and the people.

This article aimed to develop critical understanding of public space, especially under the knowledge of urban design, by combining the two theoretical concepts of social production and cultural consumption of space.

This theoretical essay tries to present a legible picture of the position of urban public spaces in a theoretical frame that stemmed from examining a hierarchy from philosophical roots to tangible concepts derived from the above two concepts.

The findings show how the concepts considered in the three categories of literature (social production of space, cultural consumption and critical studies of urban design) at three levels of discussion (paradigmatic, theoretical and objective).

The realm of everyday life can be understood as the confluence of the two concepts of cultural consumption and social production of space; which a visible part of it is occuring in public spaces as the field of action of urban design and the constant crystallization of production and consumption flows. In this position, everyday can be read through the concept of homogenization of space, where the upstream forces of abstract production in dialectics with downstream forces of objective consumption are evolving contemporary urban spaces.