What Do Good Public Spaces Look Like?

A discussion arises about how design dictates behavior (and should it), the role of beauty, and the idea that public spaces would be better loved if there weren't so many crappy ones around.

Susan Grant Lewin writes, "I feel that public spaces, in cities at least, have to be just rare enough to make them exciting. I live in New York and there are so many "pseudo" public spaces–these little semi-private plazas–and so many of them are mediocre at best. They were created by well-intentioned people, obviously, and by well-intentioned policies; but having too many small, middling-quality public spaces takes away not only the resources to maintain and improve each individual space, but also takes away some of the special-ness of coming upon a truly high-quality public space in the city."