SOCIAL LIFE IN THE PUBLIC REALM

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Abstract
The public realm is defined as those nonprivate sectors or areas of urban settlements in which individuals in co-presence tend to be personally unknown or only categorically known to one another. Through a review of the largely ethnographic literature on the public realm, this article details the relationship between it and other types of social space, argues for the thoroughly social character of what occurs there, and describes some of its characteristic rules and relationships. A concluding section speculates on the possible functions or social uses of the public realm.