Sustaining Care-Full Public Spaces

Authors

Miriam Williams | Justine Lloyd | Harriet Narwal | Donna Houston | Nerida Carter | Kate Lloyd | Bronwyn Rennex

School of Communications, Society and Culture, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Summary

This paper develops a multidimensional framework for sustaining care‐full public spaces. We open by engaging with key understandings of the affective and relational dimensions of both public spaces and urban care scholarship. We then set out the elements of a framework for conceptualising the possibility of care‐full public spaces. Writing from feminist and decolonial standpoints, we review emerging and foundational research to delineate three key components of such an approach: (1) governance, (2) materialities and design, and (3) performing public spaces. We then apply the framework, grounding our analysis of care in public spaces in a case study of caring for and as Country in Sydney, Australia. Throughout the paper we emphasise the generative possibility of care as an evaluative frame and central practice that sustains public spaces.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s). Geography Compass published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar technologies.

Publication:

This article was published in collaboration with Geography Compass Volume 19, Issue 6 Jun 2025.

Citation:

Williams, M., Lloyd, J., Narwal, H., Houston, D., Carter, N., Lloyd, K. and Rennex, B. (2025), Sustaining Care-Full Public Spaces. Geography Compass, 19: e70030. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.70030