6 ms·

There is no "insidious creep" - this is private land, and owners are -- or at least should be -- free to allow what they like. be glad they turn some of it in a

There is no "insidious creep" - this is private land, and owners are -- or at least should be -- free to allow what they like. be glad they turn some of it in a space that can be enjoyed. If you don´t like it, you should turn to your government to get them to buy it back, and make it real public space.

collyw 9y ago
If you take the concept of private land back far enough, you will see very little legitimacy in it.
bleuarff 9y ago
It is indeed insidious in that the general public has no way to know the place is private and not public space.
- fche 9y ago
  Why does it matter to them?
  - ivanbakel 9y ago
    Because the very act of being on private land means relinquishing some rights to the property owner. I don't like the idea of suddenly being under the jurisdiction of private security just because I walked into an non-distinct private area. Especially since, as the article shows, plenty of them enforce regulations you may not know the details of.
  - elthran 9y ago
    Because they are then subject to the private rules that the landowner enforces, without realising it, as is pointed out multiple times in the article
    - fche 9y ago
      The article is long on words and on Concern, but short on actual compact statement of the problem. Can you help me out here and list some of these problematic private rules?
      - bleuarff 9y ago
        Another point of the article is that the majority of the land owners refused to answer the question. You don't even know what you can and can't do until you're trespassing. Please RTFA.
        briandear 9y ago
        Why should landowners talk to the Guardian? It isn’t like that would ever turn out well.
      - iaskwhy 9y ago
        One example from the article: the London City Hall, where the major works from, is in private space so there can't be any demonstrations there. Don't you think this is problematic?
        anonymousDan 9y ago
        Or the whole City of London, containing many organisations that you could argue were at the root of the financial crisis a few years back.
        iaskwhy 9y ago
        Yes, along with Canary Wharf, both private places with even private police. But I'd say the City Hall example is a level more problematic than that because that's where you would demonstrate, there's where the decision making is happening. Imagine not being possible to gather in front of the Houses of Parliament...
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      I'm not that familiar with British laws, but what madness is this? Owners of privately-owned public spaces (POPS) need not delineate their property boundaries, or provide any kind of indication when someone may be crossing from a truly public space into a POPS. Owners of POPS may establish rules of acceptable conduct for their space, but are not required to publish them. The only way to discover what those rules are is by breaking one, at which time they may be enforced without prior warning, and with no due process or appeal. The rules may be changed at any time, for any reason, with no notice. That system is so arbitrary and capricious, and so broken, that I can only conclude that it is entirely incompatible with liberal democracy. It is the very soul of plutocratic, pseudo-libertarian oligarchy.
      - fche 9y ago
        How do you feel when you enter a clearly private space such as a shopping mall, or stadium, and they don't publish a 100%-complete set of rules for you? Is it oppressive? How do you feel when you enter public (government) property, but they make available for you thousands of pages of by-laws that govern your behaviour? Is it oppressive?
        logfromblammo 9y ago
        When I enter a stadium or theater, there's a lot of fine print there on the ticket, but generally, it doesn't contain any blatant WTFs and I know that I can't be kicked out arbitrarily without a refund of my entry fee. I don't specifically obey rules I don't know about. If there are any rules I do know about, and don't want to obey, I can easily avoid entering the private property. Going to a football game or rock concert is not an essential part of public life. Malls have no entry fee, but they often post their rules on their websites. I don't feel very oppressed by them, because I don't frequent malls much. I didn't even visit often back when they were popular. Places like Universal City Walk or Disney Springs in Orlando are actually like Hell for me, crowded, noisy, and commercial, and I am pretty uncomfortable with how the Reedy Creek Improvement District is like an independent fiefdom, and the acme of all tourist traps. It sometimes feels like you could be black-bagged and whisked away just for showing too much stress on your face and not having enough money in your pockets. Yes, that's oppressive. And creepy. I don't like it when people look at me like I'm either an overflowing bag of cash to be drained or an unpleasant insect to be shooed away. Rules for public land use are frequently organized by intent, and one does not need to read every last rule on every last page to enjoy any particular use. If you are just day-hiking, you don't need to read the parts about hunting or overnight camping. If you also want to camp or hunt, you can read those sections and not also the parts about cell tower sites or water rights. You also have the knowledge that if any rule for use of public land conflicts with your rights, it is void from the start, and if someone attempts to enforce it against you, you will likely eventually get some compensation. But I have also read some of those thousands of pages of rules, and in some municipalities, yes, they are oppressive. In others, they are mostly reasonable. That also depends in part on the strictness and uniformity of enforcement. Policing for profit can make reasonable rules oppressive, and oppressive rules, laxly enforced, don't seem quite so bad when there is no real penalty for breaking them. In either case, the locals usually have some means by which to change the rules that they may disagree with, including loud and well-attended protest demonstrations. The danger of POPS is that they replace some of the functions of truly public spaces, while leaving out one or more vital functions (like protest and free expression), then those public spaces wither and die, leaving people effectively unable to exercise the vital functions.
  - vidarh 9y ago
    Try pulling out a camera. On public land you may run into idiot police officers that don't know your rights, but mostly they won't bother you. On private land they have the right to tell you to stop and make you leave. Given that e.g. large parts of the pedestrian routes along the Thames for example are private, there substantial stretches where you can't even stand and take pictures of the river where no part of said private property features in the picture, because the property owners have instructed their security to just blanket refuse all permission to take pictures.
    - Finnucane 9y ago
      Yep. I've been hassled for having a camera far more often by private security guys than by actual cops.
      - anonymousDan 9y ago
        Yup, I had a painter friend who was painting a scene on Regent's canal and got kicked off by a couple of security guards saying it is private land.
- gadders 9y ago
  Only being slightly facetious, but given the lack of council funding for parks (or how they prioritise their spending) you can tell the private spaces as they are better maintained and tidier. (Source: Working in Canary Wharf on and off for 8 years)
lewilewilewi 9y ago
It is insidious, as the land is being sold off by public bodies (local councils etc) without any announcement, and then there is no signage to let people know that the land is no longer public. The first that most people know is when they've broken some rule (not law) and are kicked off the land by private security guards.
- fche 9y ago
  > and is being sold off by public bodies [...] without any announcement You don't have public bid rules for government sales / purchases?
  - JackFr 9y ago
    I believe it can be slightly (actually a lot) more complicated than that -- especially in the UK.
  - falsedan 9y ago
    Most of the time, there is no sale; it's just a planning application. Those are usually public, but there's a huge difference between losing a few square feet of footpath to a privately-owned bench/telco cabinet, and losing a previously accessible green/brownfield site.
- djmobley 9y ago
  There are very few examples of this in London. The places mentioned in the article (Granary Square, More London, Canary Wharf, etc.) were never public spaces. They were predominately disused or abandoned industrial areas that have been developed to become vibrant and attractive places to live and work, creating entirely new 'public' spaces in the process.
atonse 9y ago
It absolutely is, because at the most cynical view, it's an ingenious way for governments to also reduce the number of areas where people can gather to protest in large numbers, etc. They can just shrug and say "it's private land." (I'm talking about cases where the gov sold public land to a private entity, not where a private entity just opened up their property)
dmurray 9y ago
The local government also gives permission for new development, and looks favourably on a planning application that includes an area open to the public. It is worth something to create such an area, but we shouldn't value it as highly as an area that is really owned and regulated by the people.
vidarh 9y ago
Why should they be free to allow what they like? I don't know of any culture where there is an assumption that private property is absolute - that's a pretty extreme view. On the other end of the spectrum, though, you will find plenty of examples of cultures - and nation states - where there is a historic assumption that the public good and/or liberty requires substantial restrictions on property rights, on the basis that land is a scarce resource and that while some property rights are necessary, or even desirable for the economic benefits it may bring, other such rights severely restricts the liberty of everyone else by depriving them of access, or actively harms society (e.g. most places place restrictions on carrying out various dangerous activities on your property without appropriate permissions). For my part, the shock of moving to London (from Norway) where many parks have gates that are locked at night, was something I have still not quite gotten over - 17 years later. It feels oppressive, after being used to open spaces - most parks in Oslo have no gates or fences, and most of those that do have large gaps and any fencing is largely to block specific routes. Part of this is more public lands, part of it is a culture where fencing in semi-public private spaces is largely still seen as offensive restrictions on others freedom, helped by extensive rights of access ("freedom to roam") outside urban areas that gets people used to expect to be free to access open spaces. To me the idea of liberty in a society with strict property rights makes a total mockery of liberty.
- arethuza 9y ago
  In places like Edinburgh it's all a bit complex - there are public parks that are always open, public parks that close at night, Royal Parks that are always open but that have funny rules [e.g. no "commercial vehicles"], large private gardens that are basically private parks and a general right to roam on private land anyway.... (with some common sense restrictions).
- clarkmoody 9y ago
  I disagree with you and take the extreme absolute property rights view. I believe that only through strong property protections can we experience liberty: when one's ownership in property is secure, then one may plan for the future. Conversely, when one's control of property is subject to the arbitrary whims of the state, then one may not plan for the future, and economic growth is not possible. Many poor nations, for instance, have terrible land title systems, and the land may be taken from you by the local magistrate if you are not the proper color / religion / race or have not paid the proper bribes. Such is not a good environment in which to experience liberty. Sure, your empty field will always be open for the public to play football, but there will never be a factory in that field providing jobs and improving the general prosperity. I won't attempt to tackle "the public good" or "actively harms society" here. (I'm assuming that when you mention property that you mean "outside, unenclosed spaces." Do you also extend your view to the buildings on property? Offices? Private homes?)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
aaimnr 9y ago
It may be a creep in the sense that otherwise it would be a truly public space rather than closed private one. The government may be treating it as a kind of 'outsourcing' and public space gets gradually privatised. So it's not the opening of private properties, but twisting of the public ones.

collyw 9y ago

If you take the concept of private land back far enough, you will see very little legitimacy in it.

bleuarff 9y ago

It is indeed insidious in that the general public has no way to know the place is private and not public space.

fche 9y ago
Why does it matter to them?
- ivanbakel 9y ago
  Because the very act of being on private land means relinquishing some rights to the property owner. I don't like the idea of suddenly being under the jurisdiction of private security just because I walked into an non-distinct private area. Especially since, as the article shows, plenty of them enforce regulations you may not know the details of.
- elthran 9y ago
  Because they are then subject to the private rules that the landowner enforces, without realising it, as is pointed out multiple times in the article
  - fche 9y ago
    The article is long on words and on Concern, but short on actual compact statement of the problem. Can you help me out here and list some of these problematic private rules?
    - bleuarff 9y ago
      Another point of the article is that the majority of the land owners refused to answer the question. You don't even know what you can and can't do until you're trespassing. Please RTFA.
      - briandear 9y ago
        Why should landowners talk to the Guardian? It isn’t like that would ever turn out well.
    - iaskwhy 9y ago
      One example from the article: the London City Hall, where the major works from, is in private space so there can't be any demonstrations there. Don't you think this is problematic?
      - anonymousDan 9y ago
        Or the whole City of London, containing many organisations that you could argue were at the root of the financial crisis a few years back.
        iaskwhy 9y ago
        Yes, along with Canary Wharf, both private places with even private police. But I'd say the City Hall example is a level more problematic than that because that's where you would demonstrate, there's where the decision making is happening. Imagine not being possible to gather in front of the Houses of Parliament...
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    I'm not that familiar with British laws, but what madness is this? Owners of privately-owned public spaces (POPS) need not delineate their property boundaries, or provide any kind of indication when someone may be crossing from a truly public space into a POPS. Owners of POPS may establish rules of acceptable conduct for their space, but are not required to publish them. The only way to discover what those rules are is by breaking one, at which time they may be enforced without prior warning, and with no due process or appeal. The rules may be changed at any time, for any reason, with no notice. That system is so arbitrary and capricious, and so broken, that I can only conclude that it is entirely incompatible with liberal democracy. It is the very soul of plutocratic, pseudo-libertarian oligarchy.
    - fche 9y ago
      How do you feel when you enter a clearly private space such as a shopping mall, or stadium, and they don't publish a 100%-complete set of rules for you? Is it oppressive? How do you feel when you enter public (government) property, but they make available for you thousands of pages of by-laws that govern your behaviour? Is it oppressive?
      - logfromblammo 9y ago
        When I enter a stadium or theater, there's a lot of fine print there on the ticket, but generally, it doesn't contain any blatant WTFs and I know that I can't be kicked out arbitrarily without a refund of my entry fee. I don't specifically obey rules I don't know about. If there are any rules I do know about, and don't want to obey, I can easily avoid entering the private property. Going to a football game or rock concert is not an essential part of public life. Malls have no entry fee, but they often post their rules on their websites. I don't feel very oppressed by them, because I don't frequent malls much. I didn't even visit often back when they were popular. Places like Universal City Walk or Disney Springs in Orlando are actually like Hell for me, crowded, noisy, and commercial, and I am pretty uncomfortable with how the Reedy Creek Improvement District is like an independent fiefdom, and the acme of all tourist traps. It sometimes feels like you could be black-bagged and whisked away just for showing too much stress on your face and not having enough money in your pockets. Yes, that's oppressive. And creepy. I don't like it when people look at me like I'm either an overflowing bag of cash to be drained or an unpleasant insect to be shooed away. Rules for public land use are frequently organized by intent, and one does not need to read every last rule on every last page to enjoy any particular use. If you are just day-hiking, you don't need to read the parts about hunting or overnight camping. If you also want to camp or hunt, you can read those sections and not also the parts about cell tower sites or water rights. You also have the knowledge that if any rule for use of public land conflicts with your rights, it is void from the start, and if someone attempts to enforce it against you, you will likely eventually get some compensation. But I have also read some of those thousands of pages of rules, and in some municipalities, yes, they are oppressive. In others, they are mostly reasonable. That also depends in part on the strictness and uniformity of enforcement. Policing for profit can make reasonable rules oppressive, and oppressive rules, laxly enforced, don't seem quite so bad when there is no real penalty for breaking them. In either case, the locals usually have some means by which to change the rules that they may disagree with, including loud and well-attended protest demonstrations. The danger of POPS is that they replace some of the functions of truly public spaces, while leaving out one or more vital functions (like protest and free expression), then those public spaces wither and die, leaving people effectively unable to exercise the vital functions.
- vidarh 9y ago
  Try pulling out a camera. On public land you may run into idiot police officers that don't know your rights, but mostly they won't bother you. On private land they have the right to tell you to stop and make you leave. Given that e.g. large parts of the pedestrian routes along the Thames for example are private, there substantial stretches where you can't even stand and take pictures of the river where no part of said private property features in the picture, because the property owners have instructed their security to just blanket refuse all permission to take pictures.
  - Finnucane 9y ago
    Yep. I've been hassled for having a camera far more often by private security guys than by actual cops.
    - anonymousDan 9y ago
      Yup, I had a painter friend who was painting a scene on Regent's canal and got kicked off by a couple of security guards saying it is private land.
gadders 9y ago
Only being slightly facetious, but given the lack of council funding for parks (or how they prioritise their spending) you can tell the private spaces as they are better maintained and tidier. (Source: Working in Canary Wharf on and off for 8 years)

lewilewilewi 9y ago

It is insidious, as the land is being sold off by public bodies (local councils etc) without any announcement, and then there is no signage to let people know that the land is no longer public. The first that most people know is when they've broken some rule (not law) and are kicked off the land by private security guards.

fche 9y ago
> and is being sold off by public bodies [...] without any announcement You don't have public bid rules for government sales / purchases?
- JackFr 9y ago
  I believe it can be slightly (actually a lot) more complicated than that -- especially in the UK.
- falsedan 9y ago
  Most of the time, there is no sale; it's just a planning application. Those are usually public, but there's a huge difference between losing a few square feet of footpath to a privately-owned bench/telco cabinet, and losing a previously accessible green/brownfield site.
djmobley 9y ago
There are very few examples of this in London. The places mentioned in the article (Granary Square, More London, Canary Wharf, etc.) were never public spaces. They were predominately disused or abandoned industrial areas that have been developed to become vibrant and attractive places to live and work, creating entirely new 'public' spaces in the process.

atonse 9y ago

It absolutely is, because at the most cynical view, it's an ingenious way for governments to also reduce the number of areas where people can gather to protest in large numbers, etc. They can just shrug and say "it's private land." (I'm talking about cases where the gov sold public land to a private entity, not where a private entity just opened up their property)

dmurray 9y ago

The local government also gives permission for new development, and looks favourably on a planning application that includes an area open to the public. It is worth something to create such an area, but we shouldn't value it as highly as an area that is really owned and regulated by the people.

vidarh 9y ago

Why should they be free to allow what they like? I don't know of any culture where there is an assumption that private property is absolute - that's a pretty extreme view. On the other end of the spectrum, though, you will find plenty of examples of cultures - and nation states - where there is a historic assumption that the public good and/or liberty requires substantial restrictions on property rights, on the basis that land is a scarce resource and that while some property rights are necessary, or even desirable for the economic benefits it may bring, other such rights severely restricts the liberty of everyone else by depriving them of access, or actively harms society (e.g. most places place restrictions on carrying out various dangerous activities on your property without appropriate permissions). For my part, the shock of moving to London (from Norway) where many parks have gates that are locked at night, was something I have still not quite gotten over - 17 years later. It feels oppressive, after being used to open spaces - most parks in Oslo have no gates or fences, and most of those that do have large gaps and any fencing is largely to block specific routes. Part of this is more public lands, part of it is a culture where fencing in semi-public private spaces is largely still seen as offensive restrictions on others freedom, helped by extensive rights of access ("freedom to roam") outside urban areas that gets people used to expect to be free to access open spaces. To me the idea of liberty in a society with strict property rights makes a total mockery of liberty.

arethuza 9y ago
In places like Edinburgh it's all a bit complex - there are public parks that are always open, public parks that close at night, Royal Parks that are always open but that have funny rules [e.g. no "commercial vehicles"], large private gardens that are basically private parks and a general right to roam on private land anyway.... (with some common sense restrictions).
clarkmoody 9y ago
I disagree with you and take the extreme absolute property rights view. I believe that only through strong property protections can we experience liberty: when one's ownership in property is secure, then one may plan for the future. Conversely, when one's control of property is subject to the arbitrary whims of the state, then one may not plan for the future, and economic growth is not possible. Many poor nations, for instance, have terrible land title systems, and the land may be taken from you by the local magistrate if you are not the proper color / religion / race or have not paid the proper bribes. Such is not a good environment in which to experience liberty. Sure, your empty field will always be open for the public to play football, but there will never be a factory in that field providing jobs and improving the general prosperity. I won't attempt to tackle "the public good" or "actively harms society" here. (I'm assuming that when you mention property that you mean "outside, unenclosed spaces." Do you also extend your view to the buildings on property? Offices? Private homes?)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

aaimnr 9y ago

It may be a creep in the sense that otherwise it would be a truly public space rather than closed private one. The government may be treating it as a kind of 'outsourcing' and public space gets gradually privatised. So it's not the opening of private properties, but twisting of the public ones.