Assessing the Degree of Publicness in Streets

Streets have always been a vital source of public life in Indian cities. The advent of virtual technologies and changingurban realities, have impacted its publicness and activation. Additionally, increasing degree of publicness in privatelyowned public spaces poses significant reduction in street life. Hence, it is important to assess the street qualities whichcontribute to public life. The physical, non-physical and metaphysical qualities of street assessments will bring out theessential qualities of streets that contribute to public life in contemporary streets. This paper enquires socio-culturaland sensory aspects of street life. It would assess parameters that contribute or contradict the degree of publicness.The study would discuss and build assessments from Vikas Mehta, William H. Whyte, Henry Lefebvre and Jan Gehl’stheories and perspectives. This research would build a critical enquiry about temporality and everyday urbanism andcontribute to the discussions on placemaking and tactical urbanism strategies.