Wealthy civic elites set aside specialized public spaces long before the modern era

Evidence

Yet it is also the case that some preindustrial cities-especially if their elites were wealthy, “civic-minded,” or desirous of propitiating as well as coercing the masses-did manage to set aside certain public spaces for certain public activities in what we would consider a very modern manner. Rome is the primary example, with its Coliseum, its Circus Maximus, its theaters, its baths. Rome also had “public gardens,” the forerunners of Western city parks. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 276

Categorization

• XREF: Elite spatial patronage here parallels claims in other urban-history and power-geography sources about designed public space as elite self-image and mass control. — connects to: Western parks were originally designed as scenic drives for the wealthy — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 2072