Margaret Kohn's
Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space argues that "public life is undermined by the growing phenomenon of private government" via the privatization of physical public spaces. As central business districts, parks, and other public gathering places are increasingly replaced with privately-owned shopping malls, gated communities, and Business Improvement Districts, true free speech and face-to-face political debate are foreclosed by bans on political speech or certain viewpoints (or even certain groups of people) on private property. As opposed to online forums, public space allows for debate in real time, among real, embodied people; it fosters the kind of informed opinions needed to keep a democracy running, so the loss of public space also has profound implications for the functioning of American politics.
Kohn bases her arguments in the historical uses of public space, legal cases regard the public/private status of malls, gated communities, and other privatized public spaces, and theories connecting physical spaces with political process. She argues that
