Public Transport as Contested Space

Explores the centrality of public transport to urban experiences, through its representation in diverse cultural contexts.

Often forgotten as an important political site for social contacts, public opinion, democracy, freedom and openness — characteristics which are frequently ascribed to streets and squares — this accessible and novel open access study puts public transport at the heart of political debates about public space.

Public transport can be an intensely sensory experience, leaving impressions both favourable and unfavourable on its users, and gathering around itself an extensive archive of representations since the early 19th-century. Bringing together contributions from a range of key scholars and public intellectuals, as well as literary texts, this volume offers a richly illustrated commentary on public transport as public space which combines theoretical analysis and practical case studies.

The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on Bloomsbury Collections.