What Makes an Active Public Realm? Opportunities and Challenges for Research

Contemporary cities have more extensive public spaces than everbefore. Consider the vast expanses of highways, parking lots, and sprawling floor plans of malls and shopping centers. These are all, tech-nically, available for public use, the habitat for our everyday experiences outside the privacy of our homes, schools, and workplaces. Right outside our front doors, they are by far the most convenient places for physical activity and community engagement. Yet the omnipresence of thesespaces does not translate into quality. The vast majority of the public realm does not invite us to spend time within it, develop a sense of place and identity, or travel under our own power to convenient destinations. It is unsurprising that physical activity has declined precipitously in recent decades while our public spaces have become predominantly bleak, utilitarian, and designated for fast and efficient roadways. We have traded well-designed public spaces for well-engineered guideways for private automobiles.