What Does It Mean to ‘Occupy’ A Public Space?--Or, How Chicago’s Design Frustrates Participatory Democracy.

Teach-In Talk11/19/11

John Casey, PhD (University of Illinois at Chicago)

I’d like to begin my talk today with a quote, “Social relations, which are concrete abstractions,

have no real existence save in and through space. Their underpinning is spatial. In each particular case,

the connection between this underpinning and the relations it supports calls for analysis. Such an

analysis must imply and explain a genesis and constitute a critique of those institutions…that have

transformed the space under consideration” (Lefebvre, 404). This passage comes from The Production

of Space (1974), which represented the culmination of French philosopher and sociologist Henri

Lefebvre’s thoughts on the relationship between people, environment, and ideology. Lefebvre argues

throughout the book for a process he calls “transduction.” Using transduction the analyst of space, and

most often that space is the city in Lefebvre’s writings, would turn to the physical world as if to a text.

Reading the physical world would yield lessons about the structures of power as they exist in a given

place and time as well as reveal fissures or cracks within the dominant ideology, which could be

exploited to initiate change. That change would be led, Lefebvre argued, by ordinary inhabits of the city

who in the process of using its spaces in ways that met their needs rather than those of urban planners

and businesses would reclaim their “right to the city.” Lefebvre’s call for a “right to the city” or droit à la

ville held as its central premise the belief that cities were not products or objects but composed of a

series of processes. The ideal city was dynamic, a work, or as Lefebvre called it an oeuvre. It never really

existed but was always being made by its inhabitants.

Lefebvre readily acknowledged in his extensive body of writing on cities that such a city did not

to the best of his knowledge yet exist, but its ethos could be found in specific locations within the city.

One such location was that of social or public space. There are nearly as many ways of defining public

space as there are types of public space. From a purely legal perspective, public space is real estate

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owned by the citizens of a city or town. Public spaces are paid for and maintained using tax dollars. In

its collective ownership, public space thus bears within it the status of the “commons,” a trope more

often associated with rural life than with that of the city. Moving beyond the question of ownership to

that of use, public space is unique within the urban plan in that it remains a locus of spontaneity. Not as

heavily zoned as the business or residential districts of the urban environment, public spaces are (at

least in theory) open to a multiplicity of uses. The limit to these uses is typically defined by the type of

urban space under consideration (a park, plaza, boulevard, or walkway) and also by its location.

A sidewalk is a public space but its size and placement dictates that motion is encouraged rather

than stasis. The same is true of the median in a boulevard although there the flow of traffic determines

when and how a person may move. Parks and plazas provide move options for use but when such sites

are high visibility or are close to centers of power, both political and economic, they are commonly

subject to strict regulation. Consequently these public spaces present to the user a mixed message—

you are open to experience this piece of land as you will but in doing so you become subject to

surveillance and perhaps arrest.

Chicago possesses a wide variety of public spaces, most of them in or near the Loop, the city’s

urban core. Today I would like to focus specifically on four that are of immediate relevance to the

Occupy Chicago movement—Grant Park, Federal Plaza, the sidewalk on LaSalle Street near Jackson

Street, and Daley Plaza. Through examining the origin of these spaces, their design, and what that

design signifies for the user, I hope to spark a fruitful discussion about the structural obstacles presented

in Chicago for the supporter of participatory democracy and (more importantly) how those obstacles

might be overcome as the Occupy movement enters its crucial third month of existence.

The first of these public spaces, Grant Park, is also the oldest as it has existed in some form since

Chicago incorporated as a city in 1837. Originally known as Lake Park, the area along the lakefront was

in the city’s early years largely commercial in nature. With Michigan Avenue marking the natural

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shoreline of the city, a small strip of land between Michigan Avenue and the Illinois Central Rail Road

tracks was all the city had at that time to claim as its “front yard.” It was not until 1890, when landfill

thrown into the lake had expanded the park east of the railroad tracks, that attention was drawn

towards the poor condition of Lake Park. Aaron Montgomery Ward, who vied with Sears Roebuck and

Company for the patronage of the middle class consumer, sued the city of Chicago. Ward demanded

that the city clean up Lake Park and make the space available for public recreational use. Initially the

city demurred and began plans to develop the park for commercial use, a process which began with the

construction of what is now the Art Institute of Chicago’s main building. Ward again sued the city in

1896 and this time the South Park Commission was created to manage the space under the new name

of Grant Park. They hired the Olmstead Brothers firm, famous for their work in New York City, to create

parkland similar in design to that found in France.

The basic design structure created by the Olmstead firm can still be seen today. An aerial view

of the park shows the Buckingham Fountain (added in 1927) at the center of Grant Park with the grand

boulevard entry of Congress Parkway leading straight to the fountain and behind it Queen’s Landing and

Lake Michigan. To either side of the fountain are a series of squares, crisscrossed by walking paths,

which divide the park into zones or regions. On the northern end of the park, near Monroe Street, are

the Petrillo band shell and an open field designated for musical events and festivals. The southern end

contains open fields whose use is primarily that of summer sports such as softball or tennis. The park is

further subdivided by multiple roads. To the east, Lakeshore Drive cuts off the park from the

waterfront, where a small strip of parkland lies adjacent to the sea wall. On the western edge of the

park, Columbus Drive and the Illinois Central Railroad tracks divide the eastern portion of the park (built

on landfill) from its point of origin. All that remains of the original Lake Park, in fact, is a thin strip of

trees and grass that begins at the edge of the Art Institute’s southern boundary and extends south along

Michigan Avenue to Magdalena Abakanowicz’s sculpture garden Agora at Roosevelt and Michigan.

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In attempting to add classical grandeur to what was perceived by many outsiders as a gritty,

industrial city, Chicago’s urban planners created a “pleasure grid” to mimic that of the city’s street

system. Residents would be welcomed to enjoy this space along the lakefront—the city’s now

beautified “front yard”—but would only be allowed to use that space in certain ways. It was also

understood from the beginning that Grant Park was as much a showcase of the city to outsiders as it

was a locus of leisure for urban residents. Tourists would see Grant Park in its neoclassical grandeur and

realize that Chicago was not a cultureless city but rather the jewel of the Midwest. This meaning

adheres to the park to the present day. Even though the city has long since turned its commerce and

primary modes of transportation away from the water, making the waterfront more of a side door to

the city, it nonetheless insists that Grant Park be viewed as the main entrance to Chicago. Since adding

Millennium Park to the lakefront park system, a space that is a testament not simply to former Mayor

Richard M. Daley’s ego, but also to the power of neo-liberalism in Chicago in the guise of the

“public/private partnership,” this symbolic function of Grant Park has only been underscored. On the

surface, consequently, a space crafted for the people instead is best understood as a playground for

tourists, a revenue generator for a cash-strapped city.

Moving west away from Grant Park, we soon pass through the city’s “sky wall” and into the

canyon-like streets of the loop. Located at Addams and Dearborn Street is the next public space that I’d

like to consider—a small wind-swept plot of stone, steel, and concrete known as the Federal Plaza.

Completed in 1974, this grim and tiny space is home to a sculpture, Alexander Calder’s Flamingo, and a

farmer’s market. With only a small plot of trees and shrubs near its northeast corner, Federal Plaza

attempts to create the illusion of openness in the otherwise claustrophobic confines of the Federal

Government complex. This openness, however, is mocked by the modernist high rises (designed by

Mies Van Der Rohe) that overlook the plaza. The Kluczynski Federal Building and the Dirksen Federal

Courthouse across the street not only block natural light from entering Federal Plaza but also foster a

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sense of paranoia in the person brave enough to stand for any length of time in this public space. Each

building is made of black glass and steel that reflects back the viewer’s gaze and illustrates the truism

that federal government is not open, as the plaza asserts, but rather closed to the gaze of the ordinary

inhabitant. All that moderates this inhospitable space is the presence of the post office, another

laughable tribute to the access Federal Plaza appears to provide but ultimately makes impossible to

utilize. Taken together, the elements of design in this plaza clearly indicate that the pedestrian might

pause for a moment to regard the view but must certainly move on lest their presence disturb the

paranoid symmetry of the modernist plaza and wake the sleeping machine of federal power.

Due west of the Federal Plaza is a site that many of my audience today knows quite well. That is

the sidewalk located across from the Board of Trade and next to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Here I must pause in my journey of spatial analysis for a moment to comment on how astute Occupy

Chicago’s organizers were in their choice of site. For at this intersection is situated the true heart of

power in the city—the central bank and the commodity exchange. Yet, as we might expect, this nexus

of power does not advertise itself as such. The Loop’s canyons are here is at their narrowest and most

stark with buildings severely close to the sidewalk. There are few places to pause individually to admire

the scenery let alone gather together a group of people. One of the few open spaces in the area is the

privately owned courtyard that leads back from the Jackson Street entrance of the Board of Trade

Building to the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the Chicago Stock Market, and the LaSalle Street Metra

station. Consequently, the motionless spectator or potential protestor is forced to choose between

moving close to the buildings and risking a charge of trespass or shifting out towards the street and

colliding with passersby. The sidewalk thus represents a tightrope that the inhabitant of the city,

dwarfed by their surroundings, must navigate with care. At night the threat of collision with other

pedestrians fades, but the quandary of balance remains as police may arrest those that they perceive to

be in “the public way.”

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Forced by our metaphorical policeman to move on from Jackson and LaSalle, a street that is

literally obstructed by capital I might add—the Chicago Board of Trade sits on top of it—we now move

north on LaSalle Street to City Hall. Bearing a strong resemblance to Union Station, Chicago’s City Hall

suggests permanence. Its exterior also baffles public access. One must search closely on the exterior

walls of the building for points of entry. Were it not for the Daley Plaza on the Clark Street side of the

building, one might be forgiven for assuming the City Hall had no front door at all. While the City Hall

was completed in 1911, Daley Plaza on its eastern side is of more recent vintage—finished in 1965.

When Richard J. Daley died in office in 1976, the plaza was named in his honor. This municipal plaza

receives more natural light than the Federal Plaza to the south. It also has more greenery as planter

boxes of trees and shrubs are located on both the east and west sides of the plaza. Towards the center

of the plaza is a sculpture known simply as “the Picasso.” Added in 1967, its subject matter and status

as art have long been in dispute. Perhaps Chicago journalist Mike Royko put it best when he referred to

the statue as a symbol of the “I will get you before you get me spirit” (Royko, 16). On the southwest

corner of the plaza is a fountain, close to the trees, and to the northeast is a flame commemorating

Chicago area veterans of the Vietnam War.

In an attempt to encourage visitors to stay in this relatively open location and treat it as a public

space rather than simply a short cut, events are frequently scheduled at the Daley Plaza. Santa’s house

is already up, next to the city’s Christmas tree, and the annual Holiday market will soon open. During

the warmer months metal tables and chairs are placed in the plaza and a farmer’s market appears on

Thursdays. Yet in spite of these attempts to be welcoming, the plaza remains somehow inhospitable

and sends a conflicting message to those pausing inside it. Several semesters ago one of my students

conducted ethnographic research on Chicago’s City Hall. While sitting in the hallway of the building

itself, he was arrested by the Cook County Sheriff’s police. Later released with no charges filed against

him, he then crossed the street to observe City Hall via the plaza. This time sitting on one of the metal

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chairs, he noticed a lone figure circling the plaza out of the corner of his eye. That figure turned out to

be a security guard who approached him and asked if “he needed any help.” Saying no, the security

guard moved on and continued his circle around the plaza’s perimeter. Not arrested this time, he

instead found himself vigorously surveilled. Here in the plaza, it would seem, the Mayor is content to

allow the peasants to play. But in this space devoted to a dead King, all eyes are turned on the

potentially threatening inhabitant lest a group form and things get out of hand.

Ending our tour of four “public spaces” at this site, it is worth pausing to consider what we have

learned about Chicago from their design. First let’s consider again what each site represents. Grant

Park is the locus of tourism in Chicago, the face that the city shows off to the world. Federal Plaza is a

dot on the map suggesting both the inaccessibility of national government to the local resident and its

small footprint in Chicago’s iconography of power. The lack of extensive public space on Jackson and

LaSalle highlights the ability of financial power to mask its true influence on city life. A blank wall and a

wall of humanity encourage motion rather than observation and contemplation. Pay no attention to the

man behind the curtain. And finally, Daley Plaza advertises itself not only as a public space but also as

the true seat of power. All blessings flow from the Mayor who gives his loyal subjects a space to play

under his protective gaze. Yet like any father, this one can grow stern at a moment’s notice, chastising

his unruly children for their foolish whining. As different as the meanings of each space are, they

nonetheless present the same basic message to the resident of the city—you should keep moving.

Power understands that motion discourages thought at the same time that it promotes commerce.

Motion also fosters self-absorption. One is intent to get where they are going without delay and the

city’s grid is happy to oblige. Bounded by this “economic geography” residents become not only

carriers of cargo but cargo themselves. Living freight to be moved about the city.

This depressing insight leads me to the heart of the matter, my answer to the question that

serves as the title of this talk: What does it mean to “occupy” a public space? Since none of the four

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spaces examined earlier fit Lefebvre’s model of a public space, any activity that goes against the norm,

that violates the stated design intentions of the technocrats who manage the city, could potentially be

viewed as a transgressive act. But is transgression of the rules of public space the same thing as an

occupation? Yes and no. Transgression is a tactical move. What Michel De Certeau, the French

ethnologist referred to as “making do.” In describing how this process operates in urban space,

De Certeau uses the example of jaywalking or taking shortcuts, which operate as a “pedestrian speech

act.” We violate the grid by cutting across it at an angle. Our act is small, an individual statement. Its

legacy, however, might take on greater import. An example of this can be found on the UIC campus.

When the walkways were redesigned, no straight path was created between University Hall (the main

campus offices) and the Library. Thus you could see the library a few hundred feet away but could not

walk to it without going across the grass. Hundreds of faculty, staff, and students did just that. Soon the

grass was dead in a straight line leading towards the library. Not long after, a walkway was laid in that

direction. A shortcut had metamorphosed from an individual decision into a group statement. Space

was reclaimed from the designer by those who used it every day.

This act of reclamation (small though it is) is at the heart of what it means to demand “the right

to the city.” But it is simply a beginning. As soon as these would be short-cutters view themselves as

collective actors in making the city and not simply making do, then and only then do they become

occupiers. Moreover, in their act of occupation these collective actors make palpable the irony (noted

earlier) that Chicago’s public spaces are not public at all. Perhaps this irony helps to explain (at least in

part) the local media’s attempt to ignore the Occupy Chicago movement or subject it to ridicule. As the

lawyer in Melville’s masterful tale, “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street,” who is confronted by

the unfixable and unfathomable suffering of his employee, the inhabitant of Chicago is reminded by the

occupiers of the thing they wished they did not know. “I prefer not,” becomes the public refrain even as

the Bartleby-like Occupy movement uses this same refrain to remind Chicagoans that their city does not

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belong to them but to the tourists and the businesses who under the euphemism of public/private

partnership have gradually begun to purchase its ground from under their feet.

Having found the weak link in the city’s rationale, it is now imperative to decide how that

message might best be conveyed and to whom it must be brought. By way of a conclusion, I have an

immodest proposal that I hope might spark a fruitful discussion following my remarks. That proposal

involves the suggestion that Occupy Chicago adopt and adapt tactics outlined by Mao Tse Tung in his

struggle with Japan and then later the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. What Mao referred to as

“revolutionary war” or a “people’s war” depended on acknowledging the reality of unequal forces. Not

able to confront power directly, Mao shaped his force into a mosquito that would slowly drain his

opponent not only of blood but also of the will to fight. Now, let me be clear, I am not suggesting that

Occupy Chicago engage in violence. Rather I am imagining occupation as not a static phenomenon but a

rolling series of occupations. Static occupations such as those occurring across the United States

operate best when there is strength in numbers. It is much harder to evict several thousand people

from a public square than a few hundred. However, in Chicago where the number of static occupiers

has remained fairly small, such tactics not only fail to achieve the desired result but add to the

impression that the movement lacks strength to survive. A rolling occupation would challenge that

perception by allowing small groups of anywhere from 10 to 100 occupiers to appear seemingly at

random at different points within the city. One day at LaSalle and Jackson, the next at Daley Plaza,

following that the Water Tower, and perhaps even the shopping sanctuaries of Lincoln Park.

These rolling occupations need only have two recurring aspects to them. First, they should

whenever possible target the weak underbelly of the city’s power—the outsiders. It is no accident that

Mayor Daley allowed Oprah Winfrey to tape a show on Michigan Avenue but would not let Anti-War

protestors march on the same street. A good middle class home owner, and Chicago clearly sees itself

in that light, keeps discord off the front lawn. Always show a good face to the neighbors. If you bring

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dissent to the city’s front yard, you not only highlight the fact that the beauties of the city are only a gift

from those in power to the city’s residents rather than an inheritance but also draw the undivided

attention of City Hall and the currently recumbent Chicago media.

Fully aware that this is the political equivalent of teasing the bears, it is important to know the

right moment to back off. Attention provoked, move to a new public space. But do not stop. This is the

second attribute necessary to make rolling occupations succeed. Mayor Emmanuel must be confronted

with the specter of near constant annoyance popping up unpredictably all over the city. Then he will be

forced to choose, bargain or engage in a crackdown.

Unfortunately, constant motion is inevitable for Occupy Chicago. Our city’s design as well as the

movement’s still modest numbers determines this reality. However, targeted protests rolling from one

public space to another will create an affective movement to redefine the collective narrative of the city.

Occupation done in a dynamic rather than a static way will be Chicago’s surest path to reclaiming the

“right to the city.”