Cabanatuan City’s Plaza Lucero, once central to city life, rose to prominence as General Antonio Luna’s place of death. Four decades of neglect turned it into a barren, concrete parking lot. But recent public clamor led to its drastic renovation and eventual reintroduction to the public in April 2022. The once unusable plaza grounds were transformed into a grand, old Cabanatuan-style landscape of lights, fountains, shrubbery, and a shining monument.

For my undergraduate thesis, I explored the inclusivity of the plaza space by examining experiences of access, usage, and participation among marginalized groups in the plaza’s renovated state. However, more still needs to be said about what public plazas really mean for cities and their people, and what priorities and ideas inform local government decisions to rehabilitate public plazas. Like any space, public plazas are landscapes informed by spatial imaginaries, in which efforts towards transformation are loaded with ideas about what city spaces should look like and who they should serve.

In this essay, I analyze ongoing phenomena surrounding public plazas in the Philippines, such as beautification, privatization, and gentrification. I examine how these phenomena and their manifestations within the plaza landscape are linked, not only to the positioning of city plazas as representative spaces of city culture, but also to spatial imaginaries on urbanization and the ‘global city.’ Concepts of spatial justice and right to the city will be used to look at beautification and privatization processes in relation to the global agenda of renewed capital accumulation, in which public spaces are converted into commodified space. Finally, the essay argues for why inclusivity in design and practice must be at the core of efforts to rehabilitate or create public plazas and other public city spaces.

The idea of a plaza mayor, defined as an open space situated in the center of administrative, religious, and government buildings, was brought to the Philippines during the period of Spanish colonization (Optima 2020). During the precolonial period, Filipinos built villages alongside bodies of water, forming linear patterns of housing around their main source of livelihood and sustenance. However, to convert locals to Catholicism more efficiently and to aid tax and encomienda systems, the Spaniards transferred Filipinos to pueblos, which are Christianised villages or settlements with residents living close to one another. These pueblos would have their own plaza complexes, open square or rectangle-shaped spaces surrounded by a chapel or church, convent, marketplace, cemetery, school, and munisipyo or town court (Funtecha 1992). When the Spanish colonial period ended, the structure of the Plaza remained, but taking on the character of subsequent colonial occupants, such as the Americans.

While the public plaza is valued as a spatial representative of the city’s history, its contemporary presence means that it continues to construct and define city culture. The plaza provides a space for city residents to engage in social, religious, cultural, and even civic activities. Zialcita (2019) argues that public plazas are identifiers and affirmers of local identity. In the landscape of rapid urbanization, public plazas define towns and make one town different from another. They are places that people can truly connect to; places they associate with their lives and identities (ibid, 2019).

That plazas are important spaces given their historical significance and connective capacity is a sentiment seemingly shared by national and local governments. According to the Plaza Lucero management, the plaza was renovated as part of the Philippine government’s Green, Green, Green Program, established in 2017 by the Department of Budget and Management. The program aims to support local governments in building better open public spaces. Apart from Cabanatuan and Plaza Lucero, one hundred other cities have been creating project proposals for open public space projects, including plaza rehabilitations in cities such as San Juan, Marikina, and Dagupan (Department of Budget and Management 2018). Beautifications and rehabilitations will most likely remain a priority in the country in the future, given the commitment to developing urban parks and open spaces as part of the Philippines’ new ‘tourism portfolio’ (Philippine News Agency 2022).

On the surface, government recognition of the importance of open public spaces is a step in the right direction. But a closer look will show that perceptions of the importance of plazas and similar open public spaces are tied to the spatial imaginaries of those who shape the landscape. The process of ‘rehabilitating’ or beautifying plazas is an example of how humans transform the landscape, adding or removing symbols, and building a new spatial text. These acts of transformation are not random. As Davoudi (2018) notes, these are informed by spatial imaginaries—by the meanings and understandings that people have of space. What is the end goal of the agenda of plaza beautification and rehabilitation? What are the spatial imaginaries that inform these processes? What is behind “beautification”?

National and local government units, including that of Cabanatuan, are hoping that plazas and similar public spaces will become tourist attractions in their own right. As representative spaces of city identity, the plaza becomes a way to market this identity to outsiders (Zialcita 2019). Seeing plazas as tourist attractions justifies the national government’s investment in beautifying these spaces—plazas are potential sources of revenue, in line with global efforts for renewed capital accumulation (Harvey 2001).  

Further, imaginaries of the ‘global city’ also inform beautification processes in much the same way that the ‘smart city’ or the ‘garden city’ do. Global cities are loosely defined as “major metropolitan areas uniquely international in their connectivity and character” (2022 Global Cities Report). They act as links between cities and are primary nodes of trade. Zialcita (2019) maintains that even if cities and municipalities will not actually be global cities, there is an aspiration towards this global image. Attempts by cities to mimic the landscapes and symbols of global cities involve the integration of commercial establishments and modern aesthetics to the plaza. It can thus be said that the rehabilitation of urban open public space is not out of concern for city residents and their needs. Rather, there is an aspiration to increase the value of the city’s spaces to possibly improve economic outcomes.

Improving economic outcomes for the city through beautifying public spaces can be seen as a good thing. It can create new jobs and generate revenue that could be used for public goods. But it can also be reflective of spatial injustice (Soja 2009). In any such endeavor, there will be groups marginalized in the process. There will be groups kept out of the space. It is thus important to look at how beautification processes affect real people. Plazas are being made to be beautiful—but at whose expense?

In Antipolo City’s Sumulong Plaza, a tarpaulin signage was recently displayed to inform people that lingering on plaza grounds is highly discouraged, despite the residents’ practice of using the plaza for socializing. In a similar vein, with the increase in the number of tourists and visitors to Plaza Lucero, plaza management said that it would be more strict about keeping beggars out. The management would also work on building good relationships with street children and the homeless to negotiate with them about not loitering in the plaza. Instances like these show that beautification processes are highly likely to exclude particular groups of people, possibly even the local population as a whole. Instead of actively encouraging plaza-going among city residents and upholding their practices in the plaza, beautification runs the risk of the local plaza-going culture becoming lost amidst the focus on tourism.

Harvey (2008) maintains that the processes of transforming spaces within cities must be aligned with the kind of city that its residents want, and the kinds of lives they want to live. When spatial imaginaries and ideas about how to transform public plazas disregard the context, wants, and needs of residents themselves, these spaces become sites of exclusion rather than vital spaces for city culture to thrive. Beyond being a marker of cultural identity, the local plaza needs to be accessible to all. The right to the city means that residents can fully access or make full use of their local plaza. If people cannot access and use a public plaza—a public space—where else would they be excluded?

A risk of rehabilitating city plazas in line with a global, tourism-centered image is that it justifies the influx of commercial and private establishments in plaza space. As early as the 2000s, this privatization has already been evident in Philippine plazas. Matejowsky (2000) shows how three city plazas in Pangasinan had become increasingly made up of commercial establishments in the span of ten years. He noted that as the number of commercial establishments increased, residents associated the plaza more with the establishments that could be found in the area.

In 2011, Antipolo’s city plaza was reduced to half its size due to the building of the Victory Mall on [original] plaza grounds. For my thesis on Plaza Lucero, an interview participant said that she feared the plaza’s renovation may soon lead to gentrification in the area. If the value of the space increases, rent in the surrounding buildings and the price of lots may also increase. Higher prices would deter regular citizens from comfortably accessing and using these spaces.

The accumulation of capital and the pursuit of economic growth under a capitalist system shape and inform geographical structures (Harvey 2001). The privatization and gentrification that bleeds into public plazas and other public spaces are a testament to this. The rehabilitation and beautification processes championed by national urban development projects thus become even more alarming. As Harvey (2001) puts it, capitalist processes are inevitably expansionary. If public spaces, meant to be among the only spaces where urban populations can exist and commune with each other for free, cannot defend against the expansionary process of capital accumulation, then these spaces become even more exclusionary to those who do not have resources.

This threat is also emphasized by Harvey (2008) in his discussion of the right to the city, highlighting the importance of creating spaces to which city residents feel that they belong; spaces that can make them feel dignified. When asked about their insights regarding Plaza Lucero’s renovation, many of my study’s participants expressed happiness, relief, and satisfaction about how the plaza, formerly used as a parking lot, finally became something that ‘the city could be proud of’—a space the residents deserved. My site visits to Plaza Lucero and the results of a quantitative study show that the plaza is used by a diverse set of individuals. It is visited by 1,000 to 3,000 people per day during non-peak seasons, which means that it has achieved at least some level of inclusivity just by existing and being better than it was before.

However, simply setting up a public space and making it available does not guarantee inclusion. Iveson and Fincher (2011) make it clear that building with diversity in mind—and with diversity in diversity in mind—are an entirely different undertaking in urban planning. Designing for universality, with the idea that creating a universal user-friendly space would benefit all, could overlook the needs and contexts of marginalized individuals. Beyond this, it is important for public spaces to not only be open to diversity but to also foster and facilitate it. Ensuring that services are equally accessible to people with differing abilities, recognizing that tuning in to the particular needs of particular groups, and seeking to become a space where people are able to interact with other kinds of people and perhaps even be different people, are all ways in which public spaces can pursue inclusion (ibid, 2011).

My thesis on Plaza Lucero found that a majority of plaza goers have a high level of access—they generally find it easy to arrive at the plaza, but an average level of use—the ways in which they can make use of the plaza are insufficient or not diverse enough. Some barriers to inclusivity include the lack of road safety and traffic enforcement in surrounding roads; the lack of wheelchair ramps; pedestrian sidewalks being blocked by parked cars; and the lack of ramps leading up to essential areas such as the bathroom. Some barriers to use include the lack of shaded areas (without it, the heat of the plaza becomes too unbearable for visitors to linger); the lack of seating conducive to socialization; and the lack of recreational spaces. Many of my study participants mentioned having suggestions for plaza improvement but no formal way to convey these to plaza management. Further, my study finds that women, LGBTQIA+, and PWD participants experienced lower levels of inclusion within the plaza; women and the LGBTQIA+ experienced feeling unsafe when going to the plaza alone or during the nighttime. PWDs expressed not being able to comfortably go to the plaza or navigate it on their own.

These findings show that the plaza can still improve on design and policy management. Feeling safe and included in plaza grounds sets the stage for spatial justice and inclusion, which can be further achieved through participation. Collaborating with marginalized sectors and involving regular citizens in the planning and improvement of the plaza would genuinely transform the space and the society within which it exists. Such process would be better than undertaking rehabilitation and beautification to convert spaces for renewed capital accumulation. Applying the lens of inclusivity, diversity, and right to the city to public plazas will allow them to function in accordance to their most important role in the modern city: as a space that both safeguards and builds city culture; a space that is central to the lives and happiness of urban dwellers.

References:

Davoudi, S. (2018) “Imagination and Spatial Imaginaries: a conceptual framework,” Town Planning Review, 89(2).

Funtecha, H. (1992). “The Making of a “Queen City”: The Case of Iloilo 1890s-1930s,” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, vol. 20: 2/3, pp. 107-132.

Harvey, D. (2001) Spaces of Capital, New York: Routledge.

Harvey, D. (2008) “The Right to the City,” New Left Review, 53:23-40.

Iveson, K. and R. Fincher (2011) “‘Just Diversity’ in the City of Difference.” In Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (eds.), The New Blackwell Companion to the City, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Kearney Global Cities Report 2022.

Matejowsky, T. (2000). “The privatization of public plazas in the Philippines: three cases from Pangasinan,” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 28(3), 263–300.

Soja, E. (2009) “The city and spatial justice,” Justice Spatiale | Spatial Justice, 1: 1-5.

Zialcita, F. (2019) “Sacral Spaces Between Skyscrapers,” in Barbaza, R. (Ed). Making Sense of the City: Public Spaces in the Philippines. Ateneo de Manila University.

*Amber Garma is a senior of the Development Studies Program, Ateneo de Manila University.