The Development of Smart Public Spaces in the Greek Historic Centers

Public Spaces In Historic Centers

The historic living city is a combination of places shaped by its people’s heritage values. Public spaces are open places accessible to all citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, age, gender, race, or socio-economic level. Their form can be seen in different forms as streets, plazas, parks, marketplaces, and squares.

Urban public spaces date back to the beginning of human society: according to Gehl, first came life, then spaces, then buildings (Gehl, 1987). Public urban spaces are central elements of the urban tissue. Their role is defining and highlighting the city’s identity and local context and showing civic pride for the people. Public spaces in historic cities are tied to people through intangible heritage defined by religious or spiritual associations and belief systems. Public spaces have become a critical theory about philosophy, urban geography, social studies, urban planning, and urban design. In contrast, public spaces are used to designate areas with particular characteristics due to human interactions and activities (Abusaada & Elshater, Revealing distinguishing factors between Space and Place in urban design literature, 2020, p. 19).

Through the centuries, public spaces are shaped according to social, political, economic, and environmental conditions. Their role is to show each place’s identity and become places of everyday life. Urban spaces in historic cities centres represent genius loci and shape their mental images with their spatial elements.

In ancient Greece, they were places where democracy and public life was developed, while in the ancient Roman cities, they showed the power of each Emperor. In the medieval ages, public space was near the Christian churches, while public space found a new identity during the renaissance.

The Industrial Revolution that brought rural populations into the cities led to downgraded historical areas that lacked the basic hygiene infrastructures, making the historic city a place of physical and moral decay. In the following decades, the extended demolitions in historic areas created new public spaces and showed historic sites’ transition into the new modern urban conditions. The safeguarding of ‘historic monuments’ had been at the centre of conservation, so the historic urban fabric and public spaces were ignored during the 19th century. Gregotti believed that historic cities public spaces were gradually becoming private spaces, depended on market needs, downgraded, abandoned and no more the hub of society’ areas (Gregotti, 2002, p. 29). In the following decades, the social inequalities, spatial and social segregation and neoliberalism spatial expressions were reflected in the formulation of public spaces. Social cohesion and common goods became weaker in public spaces management, which led to the loss of their initial identity and scope, especially in the historic urban landscapes.

In the 1980’s decade, the new consumption activities replaced traditional functions, which led to new urban areas characterised by consumption and cultural activities. The regeneration projects of that period tried to redefine the role of central places identity, but their attempts were fragmental primarily, and they were not supplemented by economic policies (Roberts & Eldridge, 2009).