But the fences checking the entry of the protesters, and everyone else, did not come down until January of the next year. Frank Ogawa Plaza was cleared on the night of November 14, but it wasn’t until January 10 that the private security firm charged with protecting the damaged lawn finally left. During these periods, no publics freely used these spaces, regardless of ideology or behaviour. In retrospect it seems clear that civic leaders used the public as a straw man to close the camps, presumably to cover less palatable motivations for doing so. The occupations were an emphatic expression of speech and assembly — the best way to counter their democratic appeal was to argue that they actually limited the rights of others. But there is little reason to think that the public’s rights, and the places of their enactment, are better off as a result. Zuccotti Park and Frank Ogawa Plaza, along with the thousands of Occupy
pushed boundaries and raised questions about the purpose and limits of public space. Should occupation be considered a form of speech or assembly? If the government does not or cannot provide a solution to homelessness, can sleeping in public space be banned? Can active protest and passive recreation coexist? When does claiming a public space become exclusive use? Occupy’s goal was to debate these types of questions openly and horizontally, in a forum and space that all publics could theoretically access. Over time, though, the encampments became bigger issues than the reasons they began, and many publics began to lose patience with Occupy’s publics.
Occupy Cal protesters re-establish their encampment on November 15, 2011
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sites throughout the world, have largely returned to their previous states. For better or worse, they are much less intensely used than in the fall of 2011 and no longer host the continued democratic debate, sometimes absurd and chaotic, sometimes meaningful and inspiring, that they did for two short months. This debate, in which many publics participated (and not always genially), may have embodied the highest and best use for those public spaces. They became, if but for one season, more than a place to eat lunch. None of this is to say that the encampments should have persisted. Some Occupy sites had legitimate health and safety concerns, with violence directed by or against residents. At others, tents covered almost every inch of common space, damaging vegetation for months. Constant policing taxed local governments, even if it often did more harm than good. However, the movement
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