In the United States, questions about who most rightfully occupies public space and the political agendas attached to such occupation have long remained unsettled. Debates about who and what practices belong in the public square are as old as public space itself. In the past twenty years alone, the attacks of 11 September 2001, the protests following the Great Recession of 2008 (and the federal responses to it), the pandemic facing us now (and the responses to it), and the ongoing protests against police brutality have all spurred particular modes of occupying public space. The events of 2020 make it clear that American society remains divided and that public space continues to be a place where that division is powerfully expressed, peacefully or otherwise.
Joanna Merwood-Salisbury's Design for the Crowd: Patriotism and Protest in Union Square is an apt arrival in these unsettling times. It delves into the history of...
University of California Press