How much are public spaces worth? (475)

Jagoda Adamus's 2023 paper asks what public spaces are worth when the market will not name a price. This debate tests whether total economic value can hold a plaza's cultural worth.

One side of the conversation treats culture, bequest, and the joy of a bench as human utility already inside the economic account, and points to hedonic prices and contingent valuation as the tools. The other treats David Throsby's cultural capital as a separate category, and argues that genius loci cannot be transferred to a shopping mall that only copies the functions. Both agree that floor area and commercial income miss what public space does for wellbeing, and that a city negotiates better when it can speak about worth in more than one language. The research transcript is on the site.

(00:00) What a plaza is worth

(03:17) Total economic value

(04:16) Cultural capital apart

(05:02) Pricing the unpriceable

(06:03) Urban squares resist the tools

(07:37) Scarcity and free riders

(09:28) Replacement and the mall

(10:18) Genius loci

(11:10) The language of capital

(12:28) Where both sides meet

https://doi.org/10.33119/GN/163105

Shownotes

Pairs with episode 476

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