Staying in place : meanings, practices and the regulation of publicness in Sydney's Martin Place

Spanning the bustle of George Street and the solemnity of Macquarie Street, Martin Place in Sydney's city centre boasts many features associated with the 'public': a wide pedestrian boulevard; an Australia Post outlet; war memorials; sculptures, fountains and seating; and a railway station. Martin Place is also home to Australia's financial powerhouses: the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Macquarie Bank, along with the Sydney headquarters of many global firms and the United States consulate. Martin Place hosts the studios and offices of the Seven television network, forming the backdrop to morning television shows and news broadcasts, as well as being a site for open-air events like Fashion Week, brand launches, concerts and protests. In such a way, corporate interest and myriad practices of sociality are co-located in this public space, appearing to consolidate in what is often described as 'the civic heart of Sydney' (Meacham 2007). But a more dynamic and contested version of 'publicness' exists in Martin Place than its surface renderings would suggest. In this chapter, we ponder these other public expressions: the visible and invisible meanings and practices through which publicness is performed and legitimized at Martin Place. In particular, we want to know how staying in place is enabled in this contradictorily civic and corporate space, in order to consider who can stay in a public place, and who has to move on, and when. The uses of Martin Place by mobile workers, Occupy movement activists and people experiencing homelessness are all instances of place-making that can be understood through different tactics of being 'at home'. These expressions of home rub against, disrupt and invite expanded versions of publicness, both in terms of understanding Martin Place as a localized case of city-centred publicness and in extrapolating its significance for identifying the limits and potential of public spaces in global cities generally. In reflecting on how people stay in place, in public, this chapter is in dialogue with the literature on mobilities (e.g. Larsen et al. 2006; Sheller and Urry 2006), on the planning and governance of city spaces (e.g. Iveson 2007; Amin 2008; Humphreys 2010) and on cultures and geographies of home and home-making (e.g. Tolia-Kelly 2013; Baxter and Brickell 2014; Burrell 2014). We acknowledge the way in which Sydney - in particular its central spaces designated for public use - has become the recent focus of 'creative' transformation and renewal (City of Sydney 2014) and note the opportunity this represents for opening up a new dialogue on issues of exclusion from and inclusion in revitalized city spaces.