Excluding the elderly: Designs and discourses of urban parks
Other Title
都會公園之排除性設計與空間論述
Journal
Journal of Design Research
Journal Issue
5
Start Page
79
End Page
89
Date Issued
2012
Author(s)
Abstract
Neoliberal urbanism encourages political and spatial practices excluding various occupants of public space, including the homeless, informal workers, and beggars. This paper finds that the similar exclusion takes place in urban parks. An investigation of two parks, Monga Park in Taipei City and Kang-shen-ze Park in Kaohsiung City suggests that the exclusion operates in a less distinctive way through the means of inhospitable facility designs, and public discourse of fear and stigma of the elderly. In the hope of excluding unwanted behaviors, new and renovated parks employ design deterrents and patterns of defensible space to shape landscapes that do not support the senior citizens' uses of parks. The municipality and the media discursively construct many of the elderly's conventions and behaviors as negative and threatening, instead encouraging the lifestyles and the culture of young urbanites. The discourses, driven by profit motives, ostensibly justify political decision of new construction, and reconstruction of old parks to create symbolic capital for the city. Such double-folded-physical and discursive-exclusion curtails the elderly's access to urban parks. Research findings call for attention to exclusive park design and discourses which are likely to lead to the loss of valuable, open space.
新自由主義的都市政策與空間治理常驅逐公共空間中包含遊民，行乞者與攤販在內的弱勢市民，本論文發現類似之排除現象已可見於都會公園中。透過對台北萬華艋岬公園與高雄崗山仔公園的研究，本文指出公園常以較不顯而易見之方式排除上述使用者，即透過不友善之設施設計與汙名化之空間論述，減低公園中管理單位與公部門禁止行為之發生機率，因此新建與修建之公園增設障礙式設計與配置防禦性空間，創造不利於高齡者使用之地景。此外，公部門與媒體傾向將許多高齡者使用公園的習慣與社群活動，醜化為對社會具威脅性之不當行為，獨厚都會青壯年之生活形態與文化品味。這些實際上基於經濟動機之空間論述合理化了更新與改造公園環境之決策。實質環境與空間論述所建構的雙重排除現象，縮減了高齡者接近公園的機會。本研究呼籲正視都會公園之排除性設計與論述，以防止開放空間消失之危機。
Subjects
urban parks
exclusion
defensible space
都會公園
排除
防禦性空間
Type
journal article