Cities, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp.

223–231, 1999
Pergamon PII: S0264-2751(99)00021-9  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
0264-2751/99 $-see front matter
www.elsevier.com/locate/cities

Changing patterns of urban public

space
Observations and assessments from the Tokyo and
New York metropolitan areas

Roman Cybriwsky
Department of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 191922, USA

This paper looks at new, high-profile redevelopment projects in Tokyo and New York City
and their surroundings for examples of trends in the design of urban public spaces and chang-
ing patterns in how they are used. This includes new parks and other open spaces, landscaped
plazas or public squares associated with new office towers, shopping centers and other large-
scale commercial developments, and various popular “festival sites” such as those along rec-
reation waterfronts. A comparison indicates that both cities have quite a few new public spaces
that enhance the quality of urban life and add aesthetic appeal, but that also reflect certain
social problems and divisions. We see the following common trends: (1) increasing privatization
of spaces that were once more clearly in the public domain; (2) increasing surveillance of public
spaces and control of access to them in order to improve security; and (3) increasing use of
design themes that employ “theme park” simulations and break connections with local history
and geography. In the Tokyo area there is also a curious trend to create large, landscaped
open areas near new development projects that few people use. They can be called “planned
wastelands” or “new urban deserts”. New York City, on the other hand, has succeeded in
having more people come together for enjoyment in parts of the city that were once all but
abandoned. The paper is illustrated with photographs, and draws on the examples of Times
Square, South Street Seaport and Battery Park City in New York, and Yebisu Garden Place,
Teleport–Daiba, Makuhari New Town and Minato Mirai 21 in the Tokyo–Yokohama area.
 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Keywords: Public space, Tokyo, New York

Introduction have gained attention in the literature are reorientation

The transformation of cities from “industrial” to
“post-industrial” and “modern” to “post-modern”
characteristics, and of urban economic configurations
from “Fordist” to “post-Fordist” modes, has come to
be one of the dominant themes in contemporary urban
studies (Godfrey, 1997; Knox, 1991, 1993; Ley,
1996; Schmandt, 1995; Smith, 1996; Smith and Willi-
ams, 1986; Watson and Gibson, 1995; Wyckoff,
1995; Zukin, 1995). Among the many changes that
*Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 1-215-204-1248; fax: 1 1-215-
204-7833; e-mail: romancyb@astro.ocis.temple.edu
of metropolitan areas from a focus on a single Central
Business District (CBD) to a multi-nodal pattern
emphasizing outlying commercial centers and “Edge
Cities” in addition to the CBD; transformation of
aging industrial districts and other derelict land uses
to new uses, in many cases to so-called emerging
landscapes of consumption and “urban good life”,
such as waterfront commercial and entertainment
complexes, sports stadiums and convention facilities,
new parks and upscale residential developments; and
architectural and design trends that beautify the city
and present it with interesting buildings in place of
the cold forms of modernism. Many of these changes

223
 Changing patterns of urban public space: R Cybriwsky
are part and parcel of the much heralded “urban
revival” in the United States, Great Britain and other
countries, and fast-improving quality of life in cities
that were once severely distressed and thought to be
nearly dead (Hall, 1998). By contrast, other aspects
of the urban scene today are highly problematic:
heightened racial and class tensions in many cities;
widening income gaps between rich and poor; and an
unacceptably low quality of life in neighborhoods that
have been neglected by both public and private capi-
tal, among other problems.
This paper looks at a specific aspect of the new
urban landscape in two of the world’s most important
urban centers: New York City and Tokyo. There is
considerable precedent in urban studies literature for
comparison of these two cities, particularly with
respect to urban problems such as crime, congestion
and pollution, the cost of living, office rents, the chal-
lenges of urban management and administration, and
other topics having to do with the quality of urban
life (Sassen, 1991). This is not surprising because not
only are New York and Tokyo two of the largest and
most influential cities in the world, they are both
incredibly interesting places to study, friendly rivals
on opposite sides of the globe, and well known around
the world for their many attractions and distinctive
problems. Furthermore, the fact that these cities are
set in vastly different cultural contexts makes com-
parisons more interesting and more illuminating. Why
Tokyo is one of the world’s safest large cities while
New York has higher crime rates is an example of a
topic in this vein.
This paper continues the tradition of comparing
these two cities. It focuses on new trends in the design
and use of urban public space in Tokyo and New
York, and looks for points that the two cities have
common which would suggest wider trends in large
cities more generally. It is based on fieldwork in both
cities, which I know well, as well as reading about
emerging issues relating to urban public space. The
topic is appropriate for study of urban quality of life
because a city’s most prominent public spaces are
often emblematic of the city itself and reflect whether
its citizens relate well to the city and to each other.
By public space, I refer to those parts of these new
developments that are freely accessible to the public
and are intended for social interaction, relaxation or
passage. Such spaces can be either indoors or out-
doors (although the former are more common) and
may include walkways, parks and other open areas,
landscaped plazas or public squares, the lobbies of
many buildings, and various other areas where people
may sit, gather or pass through. Such spaces, or their
historic antecedents, have always been important
parts of cities, having much to do with basic routines
in a city’s life, as well as with the city’s overall image
and reputation. The world’s best known and perhaps
most successful public spaces, such as Central Park
and Washington Square in New York, St Mark’s
Plaza in Venice, and the nicely designed walkways
224
and sitting areas gracing the Singapore River, add
immensely to the quality of urban life, pleasing locals
and visitors alike. Indeed, prominent architects and
urban planners have argued for some time that the
quality of a city’s public spaces has much to do with
whether a city (or a particular neighborhood) succeeds
or fails as a place to live or do business (Bacon, 1976;
Jacobs, 1961; Carr et al, 1992; Vernez Moudon, 1987;
Whyte, 1988).
I have confined the study to high-profile redevelop-
ment projects that have opened in recent years in New
York and Tokyo and their surroundings, as well as
new developments on reclaimed land at their water-
fronts. In New York, the examples come primarily
from Times Square, South Street Seaport and Battery
Park City, while observations in and near Tokyo draw
on Yebisu Garden Place, Tokyo Teleport Town,
Makuhari New Town and Minato Mirai 21 at the
waterfront in nearby Yokohama. Times Square is in
the heart of midtown Manhattan and is one of the
leading symbols of New York City. It has received
considerable media attention recently because the dis-
trict has been cleaned up and made safer, and its
notorious pornography establishments have been
expelled in favor of mass-market retailing and revived
theater (Zukin, 1995, pp 133–142). South Street Sea-
port is an old fish wholesaling district in lower Man-
hattan turned shopping mall and tourist attraction,
while Battery Park City is an enormous mixed-use
development on reclaimed land at the mouth of the
Hudson River next to the World Trade Center (Boyer,
1992, 1993; Gill, 1990; Goldberger, 1986). It includes
high-rise office buildings, a shopping center and a
large residential community. Yebisu Garden Place is
also a mixed-use development featuring office,
retailing and residences. It is on a prominent old
industrial site to the west of Tokyo’s CBD. Tokyo
Teleport Town, Makuhari New Town and Minato
Mirai 21 are all on land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay.
The first of these is within Tokyo itself and includes,
among many other uses, a popular new beachfront
community named Daiba. Makuhari is a large, new
district of modern office buildings and¯ convention
center in neighboring Chiba Prefecture (Otani, 1990).
Minato Mirai 21 is a huge, up-scale, mixed-use devel-
opment that symbolizes the new look of Yokohama
(Edgington, 1991). Thus, the list of case-study sites
is varied in terms of type, land use and setting within
the respective metropolitan areas, and represents a
valid basis for generalizations (Table 1).
Observations at the study sites reveal at least three
conspicuous trends that New York and Tokyo have
in common in the nature and design of new urban
public spaces: (1) public spaces that were once clearly
in the public domain are increasingly under private
ownership and control, although we still think of them
as “public spaces”; (2) there is ever more surveillance
of these public spaces to control access and improve
security; and (3) the design of many public spaces
has come to be more playful, often employing “theme
 Changing patterns of urban public space: R Cybriwsky
Table 1 Summary of study sites

Name of area Location Description Main public spaces

New York City

Battery Park City Lower Manhattan;
Hudson River Shore
South Street Seaport Lower Manhattan;
East River Shore
Times Square Midtown Manhattan
MXD with high-rises offices,
shopping center, and residences
Historic streets and buildings;
shopping mall; shops and
restaurants
Commercial area with shops and
theaters, restaurants, office
buildings, etc.
Winter Garden; outdoor plazas;
small parks and garden; various
walkways
Shopping mall; plazas; pedestrian
streets
Public sidewalks; some building
lobbies; Duffy Square

Metropolitan Tokyo
Yebisu Garden Place Shibuya Ward;
west side of Tokyo
Daiba Minato Ward;
landfill in Tokyo Bay
Tokyo Metropolitan Shinjuku Ward;
Government headquarters Shinjuku commercial center
Minato Mirai 21 Yokohama Waterfront
Makuhari New Town Chiba Prefecture,
Tokyo Bay Shore
Tokyo Teleport Town Minato and Shinagawa Wards;
landfill in Tokyo Bay
MXD with shopping center,
museums, high-rise office building,
hotel, and residences
New beachfront neighborhood with
high-rise residences; shopping
mall; other shops; restaurants;
offices
Complex of three office buildings
and outdoor plaza
Huge MXD with shopping mall,
office tower, hotels, amusement
park, waterfront
Huge complex of new office
buildings, convention and
exposition facilities, hotels
Unfinished new office, convention
and recreation area on new islands
in Tokyo Bay
Shopping mall; moving walkway;
plazas and other sitting areas
Shopping mall; sidewalks; beach
“Citizen’s Plaza”; lobby areas;
observation deck
Shopping mall; outdoor walkways
and sitting areas
Station-front plaza; parks;
walkways; convention facilities;
lobbies
Landscaped parks; walkways;
some lobbies

park” simulations and breaking connections with local
history and geography. These trends have also been
observed elsewhere as hallmarks of new urban form.
For example, they are prominent in the much-dis-
cussed book about the “new American city” by archi-
tect and writer Michael Sorkin that declares an “end
of public space” in conjunction with the extraordinary
impact of Disneyland on urban design (Sorkin, 1992).
Other relevant analyses of the sociology and politics
of public space that would support one or more of
my three observations include the book Landscapes
of Power by Sharon Zukin (1991); Neil Smith’s
account of “the revanchist city” (Smith, 1996); and
Don Mitchell’s detailed study of conflicts in the early
1990s surrounding the use of People’s Park in Berke-
ley, California (Mitchell, 1995).
Privatization of public space
During most of this century, the familiar pattern was
that in most cities, including Tokyo and New York,
almost all streets and sidewalks, parks, civic squares
and other such spaces were almost wholly in the pub-
lic domain – that is, owned and maintained by
government, especially local government, for essen-
tially unrestricted access and use by the public. This
contrasts with earlier arrangements in which urban
parks and gardens, at least in Western cities, were
almost exclusively in private hands and maintained
for the enjoyment of elite classes. It was not until the
latter half of the nineteenth century that many cities
began to develop public parks. This was done largely
as part of reform efforts to relieve overcrowding and
misery in working class, industrial districts, and to
control the spread of urbanization. New York’s Cen-
tral Park, Fairmount Park in Philadelphia and Grant
Park in Chicago are the most famous examples of this
trend in the United States. Gramercy Park, a fenced-
in square block in Manhattan, New York, is a carry-
over from the earlier pattern. Established in 1831 as a
private park for its wealthy neighbors, it is still jointly
owned and maintained by its surrounding residents
and kept off-limits to the rest of the public (Lawrence,
1993). In Tokyo, public parks such as Ueno Park and
Hibiya Park, as well as other open spaces, were
developed to provide refuge from the city’s frequent
fires in addition to relief against crowding
(Seidensticker, 1983). Many smaller open spaces in
Tokyo are traced to the Edo period when clearings
were created at the foot of bridges and at certain street
intersections for public gatherings, vendors’ stalls and
open-air entertainment (Jinnai, 1995).
The end of the twentieth century is seeing a selec-
tive return to the age of “private public spaces”. In
both Tokyo and New York, as well as in many other
cities, we see that private interests, particularly devel-
opers of large new projects, have come to own and
control spaces for the public such as plazas and small

225
 Changing patterns of urban public space: R Cybriwsky
parks, as well as certain walkways and streets for
vehicles, and set rules about how they are to be used.
This trend is most evident at various large, mixed-use
developments and multi-use developments (MXDs
and MUDs, respectively). The former consist of three
or more significant, mutually supporting, revenue-
producing uses such as retailing, offices, residences,
hotels or entertainment functions (eg cinema
complexes) in projects that are both planned and inte-
grated; while MUDs consist of only two of these uses
or have been developed without a coherent overall
plan (Knox, 1991, p 205). Often, MXDs and MUDs
are referred to as “megastructures”. Most of these
developments are urban renewal projects in or near
the centers of cities, new developments on landfill at
inner city waterfronts, or new developments at stra-
tegic crossroads or commuter rail hubs in suburban
settings. Development of MXDs and MUDs in central
cities has often been accomplished in the context of
complicated zoning incentive systems that award buil-
ders additional height and density allowances in
exchange for attractive spaces, both exterior and
interior, for the public. Indeed, this is said to be the
origin of many of the building-front “public” plazas,
landscaped gardens and spacious lobbies of today’s
new in-city office complexes, shopping centers and
hotel developments, be they parts of MXDs, MUDs or
not (Knox, 1991; Ford, 1994, pp 58–59). Of course,
another reason for constructing these amenities is to
increase business by creating environments that shop-
pers would find attractive and comfortable.
Two of the clearest examples of privatized public
space in our two cities are Battery Park City in New
York and Yebisu Garden Place in Tokyo. The center-
piece of Battery Park City is the World Financial
Center, a 14-acre, 6-million square foot office com-
plex developed in the 1980s and housing the inter-
national headquarters of American Express, Merrill
Lynch, Dow Jones and other well-known corpora-
tions. It was designed by Cesar Pelli and Associates.
It features some 300,000 square feet of indoor and
outdoor privately developed public spaces, including
a dazzling space enclosed by glass and steel called
the Winter Garden, a lively outdoor space adjoining
a marina on the Hudson River, and a busy pedestrian
bridge linking the Winter Garden with the World
Trade center for some 16 500 pedestrians each day.
Other districts of Battery Park City are primarily resi-
dential. For example, in the southern part of Battery
Park City the Gateway Plaza neighborhood consists
of 1712 residential units in three 34-story buildings,
two 7-story buildings and one 6-story building, while
the Rector Place neighborhood includes 2200 residen-
tial units in a 9-acre grouping of buildings.1 Battery
Park City also has a wonderful esplanade along the
Hudson with views of the Statue of Liberty and New
1
These details and other facts about Battery Park City can be found
at the following web site: www.batteryparkcity.org
226
Jersey, numerous small parks, playgrounds and gard-
ens, and other seemingly public areas. However,
unlike similar-looking spaces elsewhere in the city,
many of these spaces are private. We are reminded
of this by politely worded signs that instruct users
about rules that apply to these places and subtle land-
scape cues that suggest that specific spaces are
intended for residents (see Fig. 1).
The major player in the development of Yebisu
Garden Place is Sapporo Breweries Ltd, one of
Japan’s leading beer makers. For 100 years the site
was home to its largest brewery, but this was removed
in 1988 to clear the way for development of the MXD
featuring office and residential buildings, a shopping
mall, restaurants, a hotel and two popular museums.
The architect was Kume Sekkei. Approximately 60%
of the ground area consists of open spaces for public
use, the most prominent of which is a large, roofed
central plaza adjoining the main buildings. Because
most users of Yebisu Garden Place arrive by train,
there is a 400-m moving walkway connecting the
complex to the station (see Fig. 2). The entire com-
plex is an excellent example of a megastructure super-
imposed on existing urban form and disconnected by
design and scale from its neighborhood – a private
island in the urban sea. The public may enter through
limited “checkpoints” and enjoy the facilities, secure
in the knowledge that the city is outside and they are
insiders experiencing a new kind of public space
(Clammer, 1997, pp 137–138).
Surveillance
This brings us to a closely related topic: surveillance
of the new public spaces by security personnel to
monitor access and ensure safety. Whether we are in
New York, with its well-publicized crime problem, or
Tokyo, which is famous as one of the world’s safest
big cities, the new urban architecture reflects extra-
ordinary attention to monitoring who enters and
leaves, and keeping an eye on people while they are
on the premises. The hallmark is the surveillance
camera, now seemingly ubiquitous in half-globes on
ceilings and mounted high on perches overlooking
walkways, entryways, driveways and other traffic
ways, and its collateral banks of video monitors
watched by unseen security forces hidden away in
some high-technology command room.2 Many MXDs
and MUDs also employ both uniformed and plain-
clothes private police to patrol the premises, and make
use of defensible space design features such as the
moving walkway at Yebisu Garden Place and various
arrangements of escalators, skywalks and other con-
courses to monitor movement. They also make stra-
tegic use of fountains, gardens and sculptures and
2
Harper’s Index reported that the New York Civil Liberties Union
has counted 2397 surveillance cameras monitoring public spaces
in New York City and that 89% of these cameras are privately
owned (Harper’s, March 1999, p 17).
 Changing patterns of urban public space: R Cybriwsky
Figure 1 Signs at West Thames Park, one of the Battery Park City’s “private” public spaces, help keep outsiders away from this
playground intended for residents of the development’s residential units
Figure 2 Most visitors to Yebisu Garden Place arrive by rail
and are transported from the train and subway stations at Ebisu
by moving walkway
other furnishings to restrict access and channel the
public past unseen security checkpoints. Indeed, scho-
lars who have studied the security arrangements of
the new urban architecture have been troubled by
what they see. For example, Mike Davis, author of a
much-cited critique of contemporary Los Angeles,
sees “new repressions in space and movement”
designed to defend what he calls “luxury lifestyles”,
and an “obsession with physical security systems and
... architectural policing of social boundaries” (Davis,
1992, p 223). Likewise, Cuthbert, in his 1995 study
of Hong Kong, finds surveillance of public space to
be a “disturbing trend” infringing on the public’s right
to full access to the city (Cuthbert, 1995, p 294).3
3
A short paper that I wrote in 1995 includes a map showing the
location of all outdoor surveillance cameras in the center of the
I first became aware of the extent of the surveil-
lance phenomenon a few years ago in Tokyo while
being given a tour of Osaki New City, an MXD on
the west side of the central business district. While
riding the elevator in one of the high-rise buildings,
a hotel, the management representative who was
showing me around asked if I could tell we were on
camera. I looked around and confessed that I could
not. He then proudly showed where the lens was hid-
den in the ceiling. A few minutes later he took me to
a basement room with a bank of video monitors and a
small security force looking at them. When my escort
pointed out the monitor for the elevator that we had
been riding, I remarked that this being a hotel, the
security personnel probably get to see some interest-
ing things that couples do. The guard at the monitor
started to share a favorite episode, but the manage-
ment official stopped him, perhaps realizing that I was
not necessarily a friend with respect to this kind of
activity. My point, as well as one of Cuthbert’s main
points in his study of Hong Kong, is that there is more
surreptitious surveillance of our movements in the
new urban form than we are generally aware and that
our privacy may be in danger. Furthermore, I stress,
along with Cuthbert, that surveillance seems to be a
“defining characteristic” of post-modern urban life.
As Giddens has observed, “no less than capitalism or
industrialism, surveillance is a means of levering the
modern social world away from traditional modes of
social activity” (Giddens, 1990, p 20; Cuthbert, 1995,
city. It gives a sense that a significant fraction of outdoor public
space in the city, especially at new-generation development pro-
jects, is in the camera’s eye (Cybriwsky, 1995, p 126). To my
knowledge, this is the only map of its kind.
227
 Changing patterns of urban public space: R Cybriwsky
p 294). Or, in the words of Foucault (again, quoted
by Cuthbert), “the gaze is alert everywhere”
(Foucault, 1977, p 195).
One might wonder why Tokyo, a comparatively
safe city, has this type of surveillance. Even its new
City Hall complex (formally, Tokyo Metropolitan
Government headquarters), in a way the most public
of public buildings, is quietly fortified (see Fig. 3).
This in itself could be a subject for an interesting
paper. For now, let me say that perception of crime
is a more important factor than actual crime rates; that
in Tokyo (and elsewhere in Japan) there is consider-
able concern among the public and law enforcement
officials alike that crime has been increasing; and that
there is special fear of terrorism. The latter has been Figure 4 Visitors to Yebisu Garden Place can pretend that
especially true since the 20 March 1995 poison gas they are abroad and pose for photos that seem to prove it
attack on the subway system. Landmarks such as City
Hall and Yebisu Garden Place are seen as potential
targets and, therefore, have the most elaborate secur- Dame Cathedral in Paris, St Peter’s Square in the Vat-
ity. ican, historic Edo Castle (ie old Tokyo), a computer’s
microchip and Manhattan – all at once (Coaldrake,
1966, pp 266–277; Cybriwsky, 1998a). A few blocks
Theme park design away is a new shopping center named Times Square.
The third characteristic that Tokyo and New York Near Tokyo, in Yokohama, the huge new waterfront
have in common in their new public spaces is what MXD named Minato Mirai 21, is built around an his-
I call “playful design”. Taking a cue from the success toric sailing ship and an amusement park. At the foot
of theme parks such as Disneyland, today’s urban of Landmark Tower, Japan’s tallest building, is a gen-
gathering places are often designed to figuratively eric shopping mall straight from the suburbs of Amer-
transport users to distant places or different times. ica. Parallel examples in New York include the real
Thus, in Tokyo, Yebisu Garden Place has at its center Times Square, which has been tamed by the Disney
a replica of a Louis XV chateau and a miniature ver- Corporation’s “redevelopers on the side of angels”
sion of a Versailles courtyard, and provides visitors and now offers family fare in place of the sleaze of
with a chance to pose for photographs as if they were not long ago (Boyer, 1992, p 195) (see Fig. 5); Bat-
truly in France (see Fig. 4). Likewise, Daiba, a new tery Park City’s Winter Garden, where palm trees
beachfront community on landfill in Tokyo Bay, is from California’s Mohave Desert have been planted;
designed to resemble Waikiki or Australia’s Gold and the streets of Soho, the East Village and other
Coast, among other ways by architecture, scale and newly upscale Manhattan neighborhoods where ima-
the apparent abandonment of Japanese language on gery from the American Wild West and tropical
signs. City Hall, home of Tokyo’s staid bureaucracy, Africa helps define the new urban frontier (Smith,
is meant by architect Tange Kenzo to resemble Notre 1992, 1996, pp 12–18). At South Street Seaport, an

Figure 3 Tokyo’s new City Hall (Tokyo Metropolitan Figure 5 Time Square now attracts families to its new enter-
Government headquarters) is designed at its base to suggest tainment palaces. Here, a family is piling out of its minivan
the fortifications of an old Japanese castle. The area is also parked on a once-sleazy block of 42nd Street across from a
patrolled quietly by surveillance cameras new Disney Corporation attraction

228
 Changing patterns of urban public space: R Cybriwsky
old fishing harbor and trading port for sailing ships
has been transformed since 1983 into a tourist attrac-
tion and shopping mall, and a popular place for lunch
and after-work drinks for the Wall Street crowd just a
few blocks away. Its principal redeveloper, the Rouse
Corporation, has made the area into a spectacle of
consumption by creatively recycling old wharves and
warehouses and fashioning a “nostalgic milieu”
recalling both local history and fantasies of exotic
trading ports far away (see Fig. 6). As Christine Boyer
expressed it: “As an aestheticized emblem of New
York’s mercantile past, South Street Seaport can be
considered a kind of collective souvenir of travel and
adventure, exotic commodities and trade” (Boyer,
1992, p 201).
There are various interpretations for why geogra-
phy and time are being conflated at today’s urban
gathering places. Imitation of Disney’s Tomorrow-
land, Frontierland, Adventureland and Fantasyland is
part of the story, because of the theme park’s popular
appeal and acknowledged success at encouraging con-
sumption. Put simply, images of faraway places and
romanticized history are good for business. Further-
more, they are reflections of the ever smaller, more
internationalized world in which we live, as well as
reflections of the expanding reach of global merchan-
dising and multi-national corporations into all our
lives. In Tokyo, we can stress especially strongly a
conscious desire to put forth a sophisticated, inter-
national image for the city for national political ends.
That is, ever since the opening of Japan and the Meiji
Restoration of the latter part of the nineteenth century,
the city’s assigned role has been to lead Japan in its
internationalization and to mediate between Japanese
and foreign societies. Consequently, there is a tra-
dition of more than 100 years in the city of imitating
foreign (especially Western) architecture and exag-
gerating international landscapes which we link with
the look of today’s new urban spaces (Seidensticker,
1983, 1990; Cybriwsky, 1998b). This is especially
helpful in explaining the eclectic mix of images at
Figure 6 Lunch time at South Street Seaport. Workers from
the office area in the background come to enjoy a break amid
the ambience of a historic sailing port
Tokyo’s City Hall. Finally, it is probably safe to attri-
bute some theme park aspects of new public spaces
to the influence of the same zoning provisions that
reward developers for providing open areas for the
public in the first place. These provisions also call for
developers to decorate these spaces and make them
pleasing; use of imagery from around the world, from
the past and from the imagined future are common
responses.
Tokyo–New York differences
In addition to the three areas of similarity in public
spaces between Tokyo and New York, there are areas
of difference. In particular, in Tokyo there are new
public spaces that are hardly used by the public and
are more appropriately called “planned wastelands”
or “new urban deserts”. One example is at Tokyo
Teleport Town, a new development in Tokyo Bay of
which the successful Daiba beach community is a
part. Other sections of Tokyo Teleport Town are not
at pedestrian scale, have buildings far apart, and lack
a critical mass of population to have lively use of
public space. The result is empty green areas with
fountains, walkways and public art in the middle of
nowhere (see Fig. 7). A similar situation is at Maku-
hari New Town in Chiba Prefecture just east of
Tokyo. This is a new, planned and very orderly center
of office buildings, convention and exposition facili-
ties and recreation sites along the shores of Tokyo
Bay. It bills itself internationally as “the largest con-
vention complex in the East”. As at Teleport, a mid-
day visit reveals considerable potential gathering
places for the public such as train station-front plazas,
attractive walkways, landscaped sculpture gardens
and pleasing fountains, but no public. Presumably,
members of the public are busy at work in the office
buildings, while the green areas outside, dutifully
Figure 7 View from above of a meticulously designed public
space in Tokyo Teleport Town, the futuristic new development
under construction in Tokyo Bay. Despite high quality land-
scaping, expensive sculptures and the large, round fountain
with a cooling flow of water, there are no users or passers-by
to be seen
229
 Changing patterns of urban public space: R Cybriwsky
monitored by surveillance cameras, are all empty. In
New York City, on the other hand, I am struck by
how crowds have returned to places that were once
all but abandoned or taken over by undesirables. For
example, much of Times Square was recently given
over to drug dealing, dangerous-looking prostitutes
and other hazards, but has recently been resurrected
as a place for the public at large, including families,
to enjoy both day and night. Similarly, sections of
industrial waterfront such as the South Street Seaport
site were once lonely, dangerous places, especially at
night, but now thrive with activity.
Thus, I see a curious contrast between Tokyo and
New York in the directions of how some public
spaces are used. Tokyo, which has long had a problem
of extraordinary overcrowding and lack of open
spaces, now has some empty open spaces; while New
York, which has suffered from high crime rates and
people staying way from the center of the city, has
managed to draw the public back and boasts of a
remarkable turnaround in fortunes. In the latter case,
increased policing and surveillance are some of the
ingredients for success; so are good design, various
demographic shifts, changes in the economy, and
other structural factors. By contrast, in the Tokyo area
part of the problem is that neither Teleport nor Maku-
hari are completely finished. They may have been
“overplanned” during a period of rapid economic
expansion in the 1980s, but now, during recession,
suffer from a lack of investment and interest on the
part of developers. Therefore, they have fewer users
than were anticipated. Nevertheless, some of the pub-
lic areas that have been completed at both develop-
ments are indescribably bland, and would seem to
repel rather than attract users. In some ways it seems
that planners were assigned quotas to fill for amounts
of open space to provide, numbers of fountains and
statues to erect, and numbers of hedges to plant and
keep perfectly straight, regardless of demand. The
result is sterility uncharacteristic of Tokyo’s greatness
and some dubious new landmarks. At Makuhari I had
to wonder who could possibly be attracted to see an
obelisk of Wisconsin dolomite that had been erected
to commemorate the visit to that ambitious new city
by the governor of that American state and his del-
egation of local politicians and trade-minded busi-
ness executives.
Conclusion
The objective of this paper was to compare New York
City and the Tokyo area in terms of public space at
major new development sites. It has addressed ques-
tions of urban quality of life by looking at the pro-
vision and design of prominent spaces for public use,
and at some details about how these spaces are used.
We have seen that despite the obvious differences
between the cities in cultural settings, history and
other factors, there are at least three important areas
of similarity in new public spaces: more control by
230
private interests; more surveillance; and playful
design. Increased private control and surveillance can
be considered as reflecting the presence of various
urban social problems and reduced quality of urban
life. The playful design characteristic does not seem
to relate as directly to quality of life questions.
The finding of three areas of similarity in public
space between Tokyo and New York corresponds to
observations in academic and planning literature
about other cities, and reflects the ever smaller, more
internationalized and more homogeneous world in
which we live. We have also seen some curious dif-
ferences between Tokyo and New York in public
space, reflecting the different experiences of those cit-
ies. Tokyo, it seems, has added some dead spaces to
what has always been lively and crowded city, while
New York, once said to be moribund, has come alive
and has new public spaces that reflect new health and
vitality. It would be interesting to continue tracking
these developments to study the successes and short-
comings of these two globally important cities.
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