UC Berkeley

Political protest is an increasingly frequent occurrence in urban public space. During

times of protest, the use of urban space transforms according to special regulatory circumstances

and dictates. The reorganization of economic relationships under neoliberalism carries with it

changes in the regulation of urban space. Environmental design is part of the toolkit of protest

control.

Existing literature on the interrelation of protest, policing, and urban space can be broken

down into four general categories: radical politics, criminological, technocratic, and technicalprofessional.

Each of these bodies of literature problematizes core ideas of crowds, space, and

protest differently. This leads to entirely different philosophical and methodological approaches

to protests from different parties and agencies.

This paper approaches protest, policing, and urban space using a critical-theoretical

methodology coupled with person-environment relations methods. This paper examines political

protest at American Presidential National Conventions. Using genealogical-historical analysis

and discourse analysis, this paper examines two historical protest event-sites to develop baselines

for comparison: Chicago 1968 and Dallas 1984. Two contemporary protest event-sites are

examined using direct observation and discourse analysis: Denver 2008 and St. Paul 2008.

Results show that modes of protest policing are products of dominant socioeconomic

models of society, influenced by local policing culture and historical context. Each of the protest

event-sites studied represents a crisis in policing and the beginning of a transformation in modes

of protest policing. Central to protest policing is the concept of territorial control; means to

achieve this control vary by mode of protest policing, which varies according to dominant

socioeconomic model. Protesters used a variety of spatial strategies at varying degrees of

organization. Both protesters and police developed innovations in spatial practice in order to

make their activities more effective.

This has significant consequences for professionalized urban design. Both protester and

policing spatial innovation involves the tactical reorganization and occupation of urban space. As

urban space plays a constituent role in protest and policing, environmental designers must be

aware of the political consequences of their designs.