Urban parks are valued by residents and tourists alike as they are a pleasant juxtaposition from the intensity of the surrounding city. But parks haven’t necessarily been considered in the same economic or political terms as other parts of the city. In recent years, the potential of urban landscapes to contribute to the economic health...

An original component of the 1811 grid plan for New York City, Union Square has acquired an association as a place in which the ideals of American republicanism and democracy are both signified and enacted. The square is occupied by a central lawn, a series of statues, a small building to the north, and an...

Cities embrace and express cultural, social and ideological agendas that are central to urban experience Cities are structured to orchestrate particular relationships between people and place, creating routines of movement, spectacle and memory. Throughout history, settlements have been formed around individual iconic buildings that codify meaning, which is either deliberately constructed or construed by the...

This paper explores the question of how urban parks function as urban icons. It examines Bicentennial Park in Homebush Bay, 12 km west of the Sydney Central Business District (CBD) as a case study. Bicentennial Park was planned and designed between 1983 and 1988, a time when Australia, and its cities in particular, grappled with...

This article examines an ostensibly new feature of the securitised urban landscape: ‘hostile architecture’. Following controversy in 2014 London over ‘anti‐homeless spikes’– metal studs implanted at ground level designed to discourage the homeless from sleeping in otherwise unrestricted spaces – certain visible methods of environmental social control were temporarily subject to intense public scrutiny and...