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The public space of neighbourhoods merits as much, if not greater, care than that currently being lavished on the urban cores. Good neighbourhood space is not only a matter of resources, will, or design ambition; here the issue is the very life of these settlements.
Pauline Gallacher considers a project that was ahead of its time in embracing the challenge of neighbourhood public space. The Five Spaces, part of Glasgow's legacy as UK city of architecture and design 1999, sought to demonstrate that high quality design, exemplary art practice and local ownership could deliver useful and sustainable spaces in regeneration settings. Issues of maintenance and use inevitably arise in the account of the projects' first five years. But beyond these lie deeper questions about the function of the public realm in today's suburbs. What, indeed, is the life of such neighbourhoods and how may it be expressed in its spaces?
The book ends by describing an experimental project recently initiated by the author in Neilston, a dormitory village on the outskirts of Glasgow, with a community looking at its own life and attempting the development of an independent, community-based spatial strategy arising from these explorations.
