Rights of Passage: Sidewalks and the Regulation of Public Flow

Rights of Passsage: Sidewalks and the Regulation of Public Flow documents a powerful, yet mundane, form of urban governance that focuses on pedestrian flow. The dominant account of public space fails to acknowledge and engage with a remarkably pervasive yet overlooked logic that shapes the ways in which public space is regulated, conceived of, and argued about. This logic, which Nicholas Blomley calls 'pedestrianism', values public space not in terms of its aesthetic merits, or its success in promoting public citizenship and democracy. Rather, departing from much of the existing emphasis on the socially directive nature of much public space regulation , the function of the street is understood to be the promotion and facilitation of pedestrian flow and circulation.Although a powerful form of governance, pedestrianism tends to be obscured by grander and more visible forms of urban regulation. The rationality at work here may appear mundane and everyday; but, precisely because it is uncontroversial, pedestrianism is able to operate below the academic and political radar. Documenting the pervasiveness of pedestrianism, Nicholas Blomley addresses its relationship to bureaucratic practice, legal interpretation and political debate. Rights of Passsage: Sidewalks and the Regulation of Public Flow thus shows how the sidewalk is literally produced, encoded, rendered legible and operational with reference to a dense array of codes, diagrams, specifications, academic and professional networks, engineering rubrics, and regulation - all in the name of unfettered circulation.