As vaccine rates rise and health experts give more public activities the stamp of approval, people have begun shifting from private spaces to public ones. Today, we’re talking about what public spaces are and the policies that govern them. We’ll also talk about the unhoused folks for whom the distinction between public and private space is less clear. 

Archival audio from YouTube user Saul Rouda.

Transcript

REEM: It is officially Spring in Berkeley, California, if pollen counts are any indication.

COLLEEN: It is indeed, and this year, warmer weather happens to coincide with a lot of people getting their COVID-19 vaccinations. Which means people are starting to emerge back into the world. 

REEM: I am so ready.

COLLEEN: I’m not sure that I am. But, this resurgence of public life means more people returning to public spaces. Soday we’re talking the policy of public spaces, and specifically public parks. 

REEM: Why do these spaces exist? How are they maintained? And how do we define what’s truly a public space?

COLLEEN: Reporter Michelle Pitcher talked with some experts and activists to try to answer these questions. 

REEM: I’m Reem Rayef.

COLLEEN: And I’m Colleen Pulawski. And this is Talk Policy To Me. 

MICHELLE AT THE PARK: So I am at Bushrod Park in Oakland. Taking a much needed break from my thesis. I'm trying not to get hit by any flying footballs as I walk through groups of people who are out enjoying the lovely Sunday. We've got a tennis court, basketball court, playground structure and just wide wide swaths of green space. 

MICHELLE: I spoke with one of the people who keeps parks like this alive in Oakland. 

NICK: My name is Nicholas Williams. I am the director of parks, recreation and youth development for the city of Oakland, California. 

MICHELLE: Did you have a particular park that you grew up going to?

NICK: Yeah, I'm from Oakland, I grew up going to Arroyo Viejo park. It’s pretty awesome. I learned how to ride my bike at Arroyo, that's the first time that I hit a baseball, made my first basket out at the basket hoops, met friends. So the park, for me growing up, was extremely important. 

MICHELLE: Just to start sort of broad: What are public spaces? What sorts of places within a city are considered public?

NICK: So public spaces are spaces that everyone, all citizens, whether you live in Oakland or not, have access to and we try to create equitable access to those places. Most familiar to me, obviously, are parks and recreational spaces. So these are city parks, green spaces, outdoor green spaces that are open and, welcoming to everyone to use those spaces to rest, relax, either active recreational programming—running, jogging, playing sports—or passive: picnics, just personal enjoyment, out for a walk, you know, seeing the trees and enjoying the wildlife. 

MICHELLE: Is there any sort of like mandate that says a city has to have public space? Or is it just sort of something that we've come to expect of our city governments?

NICHOLAS: Mandates have been written into city charters all across the United States. We have what we call the OSCAR plan here, which is the outdoor space green space plan. It prohibits the sale of any public green space, it prohibits the transfer of land, it prohibits minimizing park land without giving more park land somewhere else. So if we take a part of our green space and say we put a basketball court and actually lay cement, we have to put that green space back within that district somewhere. We're forbidden from reducing the green footprint. Many cities have these types of plans written into their city charters. It is actually a mandate now that we protect public space.

MICHELLE: Why are these public spaces important? 

NICHOLAS: They are super important, because everyone doesn't have the same access to nature, everyone doesn't have the same access to playing fields, everyone doesn't have the same access to swing sets for their children, or walking trails. Everybody doesn't have a backyard, right. So some people use these public spaces, as an extension of the areas that they have to live and to be. We say, we are providing access to all of these amenities to all Oaklanders. 

You don't have to be of a certain class, to have, you know, a big backyard, to be able to have a family gathering. You may live in an apartment. And so your family gathering would occur in a public park. And so we're trying to provide the same access, equitable access, to these things that we know provide quality of life for Oaklanders.

MICHELLE: And what sorts of like policies or practices do you all have to ensure this equitable access?

NICHOLAS: There are all types of policies. I mean, we start with park rules and regulations, and these are just so that everybody can enjoy the park, equitably. For instance, one of the rules may have something to do with sound or the projection of sound. And that is so that other people in the vicinity may also enjoy the park. So you're free to enjoy what you're enjoying, but not necessarily to impede that on others who may be using these public spaces for other reasons.

MICHELLE: So sort of things like I can't go to Bushrod Park and plant my own garden and yodel while I do it.

NICHOLAS: You can absolutely yodel and you actually can plant a garden, but you need to plant the garden in the community garden space. You can't plant it in the middle of the football field.

The ordinance doesn’t necessarily speak to instruments or sound producing. So oftentimes musical instruments to some it's music, and to some, it's noise. And so equity says that we don't decide if somebody else's music is noise or not. But we would request that they would play it at a level that didn't impede on other people's opportunity to enjoy a peaceful atmosphere.

MICHELLE: So it seems like there are a lot of very nuanced questions that y'all have to weigh in deciding on the regulations in a park. How long have the rules been in effect? Are y'all constantly tweaking them? Or are they sort of set in stone?

NICHOLAS: Sometimes we learn that our approach is biased. And we have to fix that. For instance, there was recently a situation at Lake Merritt, where there were particular areas where you couldn't use charcoal. But we understand that there are certain groups of people of certain ethnicities, if you will, that cook with charcoal. And so what we realized is that we had prohibited certain people from using certain areas of the park. And so we actually amended that, and provided opportunities for people to dump their charcoal, so that people could use the best places at a park, you know, for whatever they use is that they intended.

COLLEEN: All of these rules and policies Nicholas mentioned are in part motivated by the idea of the tragedy of the commons.

REEM: So this is a basic but kind of dubious economics concept you’re probably already familiar with. And it essentially says, when left to our own devices, people will see a common good or public resource and use it all up for our own gain. We don’t actually see this dynamic panning out in real life as often as you might think. Because it turns out that people are … actually good? 

COLLEEN: As with many economics concepts, regardless of the evidence behind the tragedy of the commons, public spaces have been regulated and maintained with the theory in mind. This issue gets complicated when bringing the reality of houselessness into the conversation surrounding public space. What is the tragedy? For whom is it a tragedy? What are the commons? And who constitutes the public that has access to them?

REEM: Michelle asked Nicholas how Oakland views it. 

NICHOLAS: So this is a very sensitive area. The thing about public space is that one cannot claim public space for their own, because it minimizes the ability for the public to use that space. In Oakland, we're looking at 5-6,000 unhoused persons, right. And so we are constantly trying to find the right space between caring for those who absolutely need our care, and preserving park space for its intended use for the general public to have access to this green space. 

Homelessness in itself in Oakland is a pandemic. With that being said, I'm the parks director So I know the importance of keeping our parks open, and clear and free of debris and trash and other elements that create this perception that the park is not safe. Especially in this pandemic Oaklanders have looked to their parks for sanctuaries, if you will. I've got to get out,  I've got to get some fresh air, I got to go for a walk, I've got to take the dog, the kids need to run. We don't have enough park space for per Oaklander as well. We don't rank very well with park space per capita, amongst other major cities. So we can’t have the small amount of park space that we have taken up by anything. And I don't want to say specifically homelessness, but we can't have that park space taken up by anything, because we want to create these opportunities for people to get outside and get in the parks, and be able to feel the health benefits from parks.

REEM: This struggle to define how public a public park should be is coming to a head right here in Berkeley.

COLLEEN: There’s a swath of land to the south of Berkeley’s campus called People’s Park. And for years it’s been the center of a struggle between the community and the university.

REEM: The university got the land through eminent domain in the 1960s, but after the lot stood vacant for a few years, students and community members claimed the land for themselves, wanting to create a truly public park that would be entirely user controlled. 

COLLEEN: In 1969, the city erupted in mass protests when the university put up a fence around the new park. 

[[Sound from the protests]]

ARCHIVAL: The spirit which built the People’s Park is stronger than gas and clubs. It is even stronger than universities. 

REEM: After that, the university largely left the park alone. But every few years, the conflict comes up again. Today, the university and activists are once again sparring over the land, which is home to dozens of unhoused residents. The university wants to use it to build student housing.

COLLEEN: Michelle spoke with some of the people involved in trying to keep People’s Park truly public. 

AMANDA: So my name is Amanda Hill, I use they/them pronouns. And I am affiliated with People's Park. Originally, I was placed on the academic programming committee, through my role in the ASUC. And now, I also work as an organizer on the ground.

LISA: My name is Lisa Teague. My pronouns are they/them. I have been a member of the park user community for about 10 years since I moved to the neighborhood. 

Michelle: LISA AND AMANDA are part of a coalition trying to block the university’s newest attempts to develop the park. When we spoke, about 70 or so unsheltered people were living in tents on the property. One of the coalition’s main goals is to keep them from being kicked off. 

MICHELLE: Since this is an audio piece, people won't be able to see the park. And this is going out to people who may not even live in Berkeley. So would y'all mind describing the park to me? 

LISA: So People's Park just size wise is 2.8 acres of a mix of lawn, gardens and trees. Um, it is a reclaimed space, and shows it. We had once upon a time, as little as three years ago, or two years ago, we had a large grove of trees at the top of the park. And currently we feature a large free speech stage. 

AMANDA: There's about 30 tents currently, because the university is allowing people to stay during the pandemic. But yes, it's a rectangular park. One side is the garden at the bottom, then there's a stage by the garden. Then there's this big lawn area. Then after the lawn, you hit this little grove of trees which they did mostly destroy. And to the side there are some bathrooms, there's a basketball court. And yeah, most of the time if you are at the park, you will see people hanging out. There are tables down by the stage where people like to play chess a lot. 

Michelle: Why fight so hard for this space? What is so unique or important about this park that has such a history of residents and students and people just like fighting to keep it as it is?

LISA: I get a little weepy when we talk about that topic. And who knows, you know, the history is super important, but maybe it's cumulative. I don't know, there's something about the space. It really is, I mean, people, lots of people, you know, refer to it as sacred ground, refer to it as, I mean, it's in song and story. Maybe it’s the sense of community that does exist. Maybe it’s—and I’ve been thinking about this a lot—that it's a liminal space, that it's a space between. It's between and it is somehow slightly removed from everyday life. Um, you know, semi-autonomous zone for 52 years. 

AMANDA: For me, what is really driving me to fight so hard are the people because there is such a dense community in the park. And there's such a sense of family within the space. And so it is somewhat a semi-autonomous zone, people are very much held to communal standards. 

MICHELLE: I asked the two what their philosophies on public space were

AMANDA: I firmly believe that public spaces should be used as places to support people, because a lot of times people are very, or have very anti houseless sentiments and are very against, you know, what they view as like an eyesore or a burden. But I think we need to step back and support our community members, because the issue is larger, the issue is systemic and support and providing these spaces is so important. 

COLLEEN: For a lot of us, public spaces are simply facts of life. They’re places we feel entitled to go and where we can feel safe and be entertained and be allowed to gather and celebrate and do whatever we want. 

REEM: As long as what you want falls within a set of rules.

COLLEEN: Exactly. And a lot of us don’t even think about these rules. A lot of these conversations are invisible to most users of public space. 

COLLEEN: Well, Talk Policy To Me listeners, we hope these conversations have made you think a little differently about the public spaces you spend time in.

REEM: I’m Reem Rayef.

COLLEEN: And I’m Colleen Pulawski. Catch you next time.

COLLEEN: Talk Policy To Me is a co-production of UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and the Berkeley Institute for Young Americans. 

REEM: Our executive producers are Bora Lee Reed and Sarah Swanbeck. 

COLLEEN: Editing for this episode by Michelle Pitcher.

REEM: The music you heard today is by Blue Dot Sessions and Pat Mesiti-Miller. 

COLLEEN: I’m Colleen Pulawski.

REEM: And I’m Reem Rayef. 

COLLEEN: Catch you next time.