Social and cultural aspects of a city public space transformation. Case study of Poznan, Poland.

Abstract

The public spaces of Poznan, are defined by a system of squares, parks and streets connecting them. The Old Market Square and downtown district markets and other squares are the nodes of the system. The main shopping streets radiating from the Old Town are the connectors between the squares - unfortunately transected streets with significant traffic or railway tracks. The problems associated with the dominance of a transport in the city center causes a significant reduction in the attractiveness of inner-city neighborhoods. The negative impact of these conflicts and above all, the decrease of the spatial and social attractiveness of the public space within the most valuable area of a city centre, is the main reason for its functional fall. The low level of an attractiveness of a downtown affects the increase of a development in periphery areas and an outflow of capital to these areas. Today, there are more shopping malls on the periphery than in the Old Town in Poznan. This results in even greater collapse of the most valuable tissue of the city and its slow but permanent degradation. In these circumstances, the idea of a specific downtown renewal was invented and called MAD city for people. It is based on two directions. The first is related to the formal actions to improve engineering solutions. The second one focuses on the socio- economic decline and aims at its revitalization through the implementation of a creative device into urban public spaces. The author appears in two different roles when commenting on the ongoing changes in Poznan city space. As a designer of traffic regulations and a transport infrastructure on one hand and as an activist for the revitalization of a public space.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n19p411