Formal Open Space and Governance in Premodern Cities

An important part of the layout of a city is the nature of formally defined open spaces that give people a designated forum for interaction, help them navigate the stress of a dense population, and impact how common people perceive each other and their authority and how they move through the built environment. There is a critical lack of understanding of the origin of these spaces in the earliest cities and their social contexts. I will examine a sample of premodern cities, including archaeologically and historically documented examples, to provide more clarity as to why formal open spaces exist, both in ancient cities and modern ones. This project stems from the larger one: "Service Access in Premodern Cities" at ASU, a project dedicated to transdisciplinary research on comparative urbanism. Each of the cities in this projects have been scored on a scale of governance based on that of Blanton and Fargher (2007).I will measure the formal open space in these cities using GIS. Relating plaza area to the size of the city and the form of governance will show whether or not plazas can be classified as a public good according to Blanton and Fargher's classification and whether cross-cultural patterns exist regarding the relationship of governance to public space. A development of this more complex understanding of the dynamics of early cities and their governance is critical to understanding the evolution of both human society and the modern city.