The Nature of Public Spaces EDITORIAL Charles Wiggins, member Liberty County Historical Commission

LIBERTY, October 5, 2004 - An understanding of the cultural and political nature of public spaces leaves all citizens of this community and our State with an obligation to, preserve, protect, and defend them against encroachment by both government and private interests. These vital urban public spaces are at constant risk and have been vulnerable to the political gaze of temporary office holders and pressures for privatization. The past history of Constitutional Plaza in downtown Liberty has been a prime example of those trends.

Attempts were made at various times to place a hotel, or to subdivide it for commercial use, on what is today commonly called the City Hall block. Each time during the years from 1831 until 1939 the desires of the citizens, led by the women of the Trivium Club after 1902, protected it from being dismembered or sold.

What politicians or private developers couldn't do fell in the face of the worst economic depression every suffered in this area. The lure of government money and grants, over came all resistance to the placement of City facilities on the plaza in 1939. General public reluctance yielded to having a large auditorium to house activities formerly occurring in the open space of the plaza around a central bandstand.

Equally threatening today is the power of computer communication technologies to replace sites of social interaction with Web sites and commercialization. It has been suggested that public spaces-real, physical places- will be replaced by the "public sphere" of the World Wide Web. The information highway will provide new ways to connect to others, such that public space will be replaced by "virtual public space", and meaningful conversation and cultural exchange will occur in cyberspace.

But in cyberspace we cannot see, hear, touch, and feel each other, much less our physical environment. The futurist reformulation of social relations in abstract space will increasingly separate human communication and experience from the site of its social production, creating an ever-widening gulf between the social spaces where we live and the abstract spaces of technological power. Without the public spaces there is an ominous vision of a world where the places of people and the spaces of information flows become completely disconnected. The brave new world of George Orwell could be realized in our lifetimes.

Some critics have compared the use of a possible new plaza to the space behind the Humphrey's Cultural Center but on close examination this comparison is not valid. This space is hemmed in by the imposing rear façade of the Humphrey's Center and the railroad tracks with the constant shrieking of the train's raucous horn and the ear shattering noise of steel wheels on steel rails. A more appropriate comparison would be the kiddy and picnic areas of the municipal park off North Main. The interaction of people enjoying being with other people and friends while children play on the various structures can be duplicated in a spacious and open public plaza in downtown Liberty. Landscaping with trees, shrubs, and lawns with a possible fountain would make an even more pleasant environment for all the inhabitants.

We remain, regardless of the advances in computer technology, embedded in a very material world and we must use it to create meaning, traditions, and images that will define our lives. Meanings that will be determined by the landscape of a newly reformed central plaza are not passive mixtures that simply add an 1831 historical perspective for modern day living; rather, they are active translators of everyday practice and our interaction with our fellow citizens. Meaningful public environments must be conserved for their cultural significance and political importance, and maintained as representational centers of cooperation and mutual concern for all of the people of the Liberty area.

Through saving public spaces, the image of the placeless, faceless, informational city is replaced by an image of active spaces full of public engagement, intense social interaction, and the struggle for a more tolerant and humane small town. Through the making and remaking of public spaces, we retain the spatial and cultural dimensions of a self-governing people.

What was designed and platted in 1831 in Liberty, Texas following the royal decrees of ancient Spain can become in 2004 a place for all to gather in moments of celebration, dedication and renewal in a free, open, and democratic social milieu.

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