“Hit the Road Dude” – Contradictions of Open and Public Space

“Hit the Road Dude” – Contradictions of Open and Public Space

You likely have seen the now viral meme. A man in a white truck rolls up on two men fishing, rolls down his window, and in a very southern accent, asks, “Who told you you could fish here?” The men fishing then reply, “We thought this was state property,” to which the man in the truck responds in shock and tells them to “hit the road dude.”

Yes, this video is funny in its own right, but it can also be applied to our class discussion of public space. This video is far from the only one that shows an interaction of people using undeveloped space for recreational activities and being harassed off of the land. These men were not gathering on the land to vandalize or otherwise harm it; they were simply in public enjoying their hobby outdoors in space they (maybe) believed belonged to everyone. 

In the article “The End of Public Space?” by Don Mitchell, two visions of space exist: open space and public space. To Mitchell, the key difference between these two types of space is that, as he argues, public space serves political and civic functions (121). This means that open space can serve a vast number of functions (ecological preservation, recreation, contributing to a greenbelt, maintaining property values, and many more applications) but does not serve the same purpose as “public spaces in a political sense” (121). To Mitchell, open space is synonymous with regulation, rules dictating where you can walk, what you can do, etc., and it rarely becomes a place where civic functions can occur. 

While I agree with this description to a large degree, I feel Mitchell is too static in his definition and misdiagnoses the reasons for which open spaces rarely serve the same functions as public space. Mitchell defines open spaces solely by what they are meant to do, and treats them as if they always serve that function and that rules are always enforced. 

In Richard Sennett’s “New Ways of Thinking About Space,” an example is given that directly contradicts Mitchell’s claims on the uses of open and public spaces. Zuccotti Park, in the heart of Manhattan's Financial District, is exactly the kind of place that Mitchell casts aside as incapable of performing civic functions. It is a privately owned and operated park, built for the purpose of allowing private industry to build more square footage, yet this place is notable for the role it served in the Occupy Wall Street movement. This space was not designed for protests, yet protesters, noticing ambiguity in the rules, used it to protest successfully (25). For Sennett, this open space (classified by Mitchell) gave people the kind of civic participation Mitchell says open space rarely supports.

As stated before, Mitchell acknowledges that it is rare for open spaces to serve these functions, not impossible, and again I agree; however, I do not believe it is the rules that make this reality. Let’s go back to this fishing video. Yes, this is private property that does not need to function as public or communal space, but what is stopping these men from fishing isn’t a rule itself; it's the enforcement of that rule. There is a possibility that the men fishing knew this was private property and only said they didn’t when confronted. Either way, the rule was the same before and after that interaction; the only thing that changed was that someone saw them on this property and enforced the rule. Obviously this is an example with a lot of hypotheticals involving intent and involves a rule that at its very core is against the creation of public space, but not all cases are so abstract.

The image below is a satellite image of my hometown neighborhood in an exurban village of Ohio. The HOA website highlights that the neighborhood features 43 acres of greenspace. Growing up, my friends and I would play tag and wiffleball in the greenspace and fish the pond at the entrance.                                                         

    Growing up, this open space was where I would hang out with my friends. It was my first glimpse into freedom as no adult supervision was required. My friends and I would ride our bikes to meet each other and then find new ways to fill our day. There were absolutely rules in this area. The only ones that were posted stated that no boating, kayaking, or canoeing was allowed in the pond; however, there were naturally other rules that applied (no entering someone's yard unless invited, no breaking/destroying any property or shrubbery, and other common-sense rules). These rules didn’t stop my friends and me from sometimes breaking them and making the space our own. One summer, we took axes, pickaxes, and pocketknives into the woods and cut down trees and cleared paths to build a network of forts. On a few occasions we set up tents and camped in the greenspaces. I was sure then, and I am even more sure now, that there were rules that would have combatted this behavior but we didn’t care. As long as these rules were not enforced it did not matter. But for us, it never would have mattered, since we had a claim to this private open space; we were all residents of the neighborhood. 

This is where the issue of privatization comes in. I would argue that rules are always unequally enforced against those lacking these claims. In my neighborhood, even though I didn’t understand it at the time, it served as a communal space where I began to understand myself. It was where I first understood freedom, where my friends and I fought, played, talked, and altered our environment. If I organized a protest, that space could have absolutely served that function for me to make my cause visible. Rules absolutely existed here, but they did not stop this space from functioning in that capacity. They didn’t stop the protests in Zuccotti Park either. In Zuccotti Park, it was the rule that the park must remain open 24 hours a day which actually permitted the protest and it was only when the police started to enforce (clear) the park that protests ended (Sennett 26). In my neighborhood, if a stranger came in and did what I did, I am sure that it would cease to function as that public space. 

Is Mitchell right? My neighborhood’s greenspace never served as a truly public space and a skeptic would be right to point that out; however, there was never a rule that stated that those outside the neighborhood weren’t allowed to use it. In fact, the bike path that runs through the middle of it is used by many. My argument is that this space never became truly public not because a rule allowed outsiders to be kicked off, but because outsiders feared someone would be watching and choose to enforce one.

I think this is where Mitchell is off base. There are rules in every space, public and private, and Zuccotti Park shows that rules can even protect the public. What stops open space from serving the functions of public space is surveillance and selective enforcement, which can be used against those without claims to a space. Open space is not designed to be exclusionary, but when we see videos of people being told to “hit the road dude,” we fear that when we utilize a space that we may not have direct claims to, we will be targeted.