The Public Realm: Exploring the City's Quintessential Social Territoy (Communication and Social Order)

This book is about the "public realm," defined as a particular kind of social territory that is found almost exclusively in large settlements. This particular form of social-psychological space comes into being whenever a piece of actual physical space is dominated by relationships between and among persons who are strangers to one another, as often occurs in urban bars, buses, plazas, parks, coffee houses, streets, and so forth. More specifically, the book is about the social life that occurs in such social-psychological spaces (the normative patterns and principles that shape it, the relationships that characterize it, the aesthetic and interactional pleasures that enliven it) and the forces (anti-urbanism, privatism, post-war planning and architecture) that threaten it. The data upon which the book's analysis is based are diverse: direct observation; interviews; contemporary photographs, historic etchings, prints and photographs, and historical maps; histories of specific urban public spaces or spatial types; and the relevant scholarly literature from sociology, environmental psychology, geography, history, anthropology, and architecture and urban planning and design. Its central argument is that while the existing body of accomplished work in the social sciences can be reinterpreted to make it relevant to an understanding of the public realm, this quintessential feature of city life deserves much more û it deserves to be the object of direct scholarly interest in its own right. Choice noted that: "The author's writing style is unusually accessible, and the often fascinating narrative is generously supported by well-chosen photos."

The Public Realm: Exploring the City's Quintessential Social Territory (Communication and Social Order)

Lyn H. Lofland

Science & Math

Aldine Transaction

In traditional human societies, the stranger was a threat, to be disarmed at once by an act of force or by a ritual of hospitality. Under no conditions could a stranger be ignored or taken for granted. Yet in all great cities today, human beings seem to live out their entire lives in "a world of strangers." How did it become possible for millions of people to do this? How is city life possible? The unique value of A World of Strangers lies in Dr. Lofland's expert use of rich historical and anthropological sources to answer these questions. She demonstrates that "a potentially chaotic and meaningless world of strangers was transformed into a knowable and predictable world of strangers by the same mechanism humans always use to make their world livable: it was ordered." Lofland offers a brilliant analysis of the various devices used at different times in history to create social and psychological order in cities, concluding with an analysis of the contemporary city, in which the location of the encounter between strangers has come to replace personal appearance as a means of evaluating others. Dr. Lofland also describes how city people initially learn and then act upon the ordering principles dominant in their society. A World of Strangers is a wonderfully wise and readable account of how we have come to live as we do.

World of Strangers: Order and Action in Urban Public Space

Basic Books

Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis

Politics & Social Sciences

John, Lofland

Social Sciences

Wadsworth Publishing Co Inc

The Public Realm: Exploring the City's Quintessential Social Territory

Aldine

This book instructs the reader how to do a social science fieldstudy—a research genre often labeled "ethnography," "qualitative research," and/or "naturalistic research." While field researchers across the social sciences may prefer one label over another, their studies are generally alike in featuring direct, qualitative observation of natural situations or settings primarily using the techniques of participant observation and/or intensive interviewing. 
High-quality social science fieldstudies are contingent on the successful completion of the interconnected tasks of gathering, focusing, and analyzing data, as well as writing up the results. 
The fourth edition of this classic work is a must for social researchers. The authors make learning how to do qualitative observation and analysis clear and engaging. Their book provides an educational and entertaining road map for pursuing high quality fieldstudies in social science research. 
Titles of related interest also available from Waveland Press: Babbie, Observing Ourselves: Essays in Social Research, Second Edition (ISBN 9781478622017) and Emerson, Contemporary Field Research: Perspectives and Formulations, Second Edition (ISBN 9781577661856).

Leon Anderson

David Snow

Waveland Press. Inc.

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Books by Lyn H. Lofland