The movement to reclaim public open spaces shows a long-standing problem in government decision-making - desensitisation and neglect, arising from a deliberate refusal to address the issue. With the sustained and inconvenient media limelight, the problem has been exposed, to the considerable embarrassment of the authorities.
In the case of Times Square, in Causeway Bay, we have discovered that the land at street level is actually public when the impression, all along, was that it belonged to the private developer. Certainly, the developer has behaved as if it had full ownership of the space by deciding what activities to permit there.
The purpose of public open space is precisely that the public can enjoy that space. At the very least, they are entitled to be there and should not be told to leave. Only on private land can the owner ask the public to leave, through explicit or implicit means, such as by cordoning it off. Public open space can be made more inviting by including resting places such as benches and chairs.
Public open space is at a great premium in Hong Kong and, for a decade and a half, there has been a growing public demand for more of it. Our urban centres are high-density concrete jungles. With the continuing debates over issues such as stopping further harbour reclamation, and beautifying the waterfront, the public has consistently called for more open space for rest and recreation. We know what we don't have enough of.
Once the question was raised in public about who has the right to use the space at Times Square, the developer could only acknowledge that it was public open space. Why hasn't anyone reclaimed that space for the public? The one party which knew, or should have known, about the nature of the space was the government. Yet, it never sought to reclaim the space for the people until it was challenged. No official took action probably because no one was sensitised to the fact that the government had a duty to act on behalf of the public. The administration has become used to subcontracting out the management of public open spaces to corporations without checking on whether things are functioning as they should.
Within weeks, the government has had to produce a list of developments where public open space had, in effect, been put into private hands, leaving property developers and managers to deal with public access.
