Changing public space

laid out during the expansion of Dutch cities in the 19th century and were modelled on the
traditional British ‘square’. These were intended as places of tranquillity in the city (Meyer et al.,
2006). An example of a residential square is the Zaandammerplein in Amsterdam. Surrounded by
housing, this square offers neighbourhood facilities such as a playground and a basketball court.
Its redevelopment gained recognition as the most child-friendly project of the year in 2005.
The last non-commercial subcategory is the parking square. Due to the growing number of
automobiles, many squares were drawn into service for parking in the 1960s and 1970s (Section
2.5). Since then, many centrally located squares have been pedestrianised, and cars have been
banned to parking garages. This also applies to Amsterdam: there are now hardly any examples
of parking squares within the historic centre. However, they still exist outside the city centre: for
instance, the Stadionplein in the neighbourhood Oud-Zuid, or the large parking lots surrounding
the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre to the south of the historic centre.
Actors involved in city squares
In addition to the function of public space, our new typology has another dimension: the actors
involved in the redevelopment of public space. Some public spaces are redeveloped and managed
by the local government, mainly when the project is relatively inexpensive (e.g., a small-scale
refurbishment project) or when the government is the exclusive owner of the designated site.
However, as described in Chapter 4, the private sector is increasingly involved in the production
of public space through public-private partnerships (PPP). Seldom does the private sector
develop public space alone, as the local government often owns the land. Therefore, two
subcategories can be distinguished: squares that have been redeveloped by the local government
(public); and squares developed in co-operation with the private sector (PPP). With two functions
(i.e., commercial and non-commercial), comprised of four subcategories, and two subcategories
of actor involvement (i.e., public and PPP), we have constructed a new typology consisting of
eight types of Dutch city squares. These eight types are indicated by roman numerals in Table
5.1.
In reality, type VIII will probably hardly ever occur. As discussed in Section 4.3, the private sector
is mainly interested in redeveloping public space for commercial uses. Thus, the private sector
should not be expected to get involved in upgrading non-commercial squares. For this reason,
and on pragmatic grounds, the empirical chapters treat non-commercial squares as an aggregate
category rather than discussing the three subcategories (civil, residential, and parking squares)
separately. Hence its compression into a single column in Table 5.1.
Table 5.1 New typology of Dutch city squares
Actors
Function
Commercial
Non-commercial
Cultural
square
Retail
square
Café
square
Civil, residential, or
parking square
Public Type I Type II Type III Type IV
PPP Type V Type VI Type VII Type VIII
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