The future prospects of urban parks: The life, times and social order of Victorian public parks as places of social mixing

该项目汇集了历史学、犯罪学和城市研究的见解，以探索城市公园作为公共集会场所的未来前景，无论是在维多利亚时期还是现在。该项目的目的是对公园未来的社会意义和作用以及社会群体(力量)如何在国际大都市中安全地生活和融合产生一种新的理解。它通过探索这些公共空间如何随着时间的推移而演变，将这些公共空间的过去、现在和未来的重要性联系起来，这些公共空间最初是维多利亚时代城市中不同群体之间社交融合的空间。它调查了官方和公众对公园可能成为什么样的社会可能性的期望，以及它们与维多利亚时代和当代时代的未来愿景相一致的预期效果。通过这些方式，该项目与AHRC‘关爱未来’的研究主题及其‘回顾过去’的核心目标相联系，并推进了这一主题。该项目将历史分析与一项新的当代研究相结合，探索使用和使用维多利亚时代公园的人在治理、监管和治安方面的经验和观点。因此，它面临着在公共空间管理社会融合的挑战，包括围绕行为的冲突、社会混乱和对多元文化城市中的他者的焦虑。它还探讨了混合在促进社会凝聚力方面可能促进的结果及其潜在的文明效果。该项目将考虑公园的原始设计和理念如何与当代城市的需求保持相关性，以及它如何适应不断变化的社会条件。这项研究将使我们能够关心城市公园的未来，不仅通过了解它的过去和现在，而且通过将这种理解转化为未来管理的具体政策建议。该项目将对未来城市公园的愿景、治理和可持续性进行重新解读和振兴。在紧缩和地方政府削减包括城市公园在内的非强制性公共服务支出的背景下，现在是重新思考这些公共空间的愿景和治理的好时机。这项研究基于西约克郡利兹的三个维多利亚时代的公园。这些案例研究结合了不同的公园类型，包括他们的社会理想和目的，用户和利益相关者的规模和社会形象，以及从盛大的表演和仪式场所到非正式的社区公园的公园生活体验的多样性。该项目提供了新的和独特的跨学科见解，将艺术和人文与社会科学联系起来。该项目的调查结果将纳入关于城市未来的公共政策辩论，并吸引跨学科的学术受众，特别是在社会和城市历史、法律、犯罪学、社会学、城市政策和文化研究方面。该项目将通过公开展览、免费获取的利兹维多利亚时代公园照片的数字集合，以及通过博客、Twitter订阅和媒体简报来吸引公众。

This project brings together insights from history, criminology and urban studies to explore the future prospects of city parks as public meeting places, in both the Victorian period and the present day. The aim of the project is to generate a novel understanding of the future social significance and role of public parks and how social groups (might) live together and commingle safely in cosmopolitan cities. It makes connections between the past, the present and the future importance of these public spaces by exploring how they have evolved over time from their origins as spaces of social mixing between diverse groups in Victorian cities. It investigates official and public expectations of what parks might become in terms of their social possibilities and their desired effects aligned with visions of the future, both in the Victorian and contemporary eras. In these ways, the project connects with and advances the AHRC 'Care for the Future' research theme and its central ambition of 'thinking forward through the past'. The project combines historical analysis with a new contemporary study to explore the experiences and views of people that used and use Victorian parks in terms of their governance, regulation and policing. It therefore engages with the challenges of managing social mixing in public space, including the possibilities for conflict around behaviour, social disorder, and anxieties of otherness in the multi-cultural city. It also explores the outcomes commingling may facilitate in terms of promoting social cohesion and its potential civilising effects. The project will consider how the public park's original design and rationale remains relevant to the needs of the contemporary city and how it has adapted to changing social conditions. This research will allow us to 'care for the future' of the urban public park, not just by understanding its past and its present, but by translating that understanding into concrete policy proposals for its future governance. The project will provide a reinterpretation and reinvigoration of the vision, governance and sustainability of urban parks in cities of the future. In the context of austerity and local authority spending cuts to non-compulsory public services, including city parks, this is an opportune time to rethink the vision and governance of these public spaces. The research is based on three Victorian public parks in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Together, these case studies combine a diversity of park types in terms of their social ideals and purposes, the size and social profile of users and stakeholders, and the diversity of experiences of park life from places of grand show and ceremony to informal community parks. The project contributes new and unique inter-disciplinary insights connecting the arts and humanities with the social sciences. The project findings will feed into public policy debates about the future of cities and engage academic audiences working across disciplines, particularly in social and urban history, law, criminology, sociology, urban policy and cultural studies. The project will engage public audiences through a public exhibition, a free-to-access digital collection of photographs of Victorian parks in Leeds, and via blogs, twitter feeds, and media briefings.