Presented at Esri's GeoDev Meetup in Boston, 2014

1. Mapping
The Privatization
of Public Space
Evidence from 75,000 Instagrams
Yunjie Li
MDesS 16’, Harvard Univ
+
Chaewon Ahn
SMarch 15’, MIT
GeoDev Meettup
Boston 2014

2. What does Boston’s public space look like?

3. SOCIAL SPACE
PUBLIC SPACE
.
.
.
privately owned public space
.
.
.
privatized public space
//////////////////////////////////////////
Private space
virtual space (webpages, apps...)
//////////////////////////////////////////
PUBLIC REALM
connection of
people
Face to face interaction
virtual connections (friend, follows, ...)
Term Definition
Third space
First space
Second space

4. 2005Boston Land Use
’71 ’85 ’99 ’05

5. A re-categorization
Land Use Code of Boston, 2005

6. Evidence from social media
Legend
Kernel density of posts
Percentile
Top 10%
10-20%
20-40%
40-60%
60-80%
80-100%
CENSUS BLOCKS
´
0 0.5 10.25
Miles
Geo-tagged Instagrams
Cases of Public Space
Kernel density map of Instagram posting locations

7. Chinatown
Quicy Market
Newbury Street
Boston Common

8. “Privatization” of land use?
24-Hour Volume Study
Open social
Conditional social
Private social
1 Boston Common 2 Copley Square 3 Newbury Street
4 Charles Street 5 Prudential Center 6 Faneuil Hall
7 Government Center 8 South Station 9 Beach St, Chinatown

9. City highlights: from open gardens to commercial & recreational
Image of The City
Kevin Lynch, 1960
Remapped Boston
27,392 Instagramers, 2014