The privatizing of public space

A few days ago we ran an item from WCCO in Indiana that noted, "In the next few days, the Bloomington City Attorney Sandra Johnson expects to file criminal charges against the organizers of Saturday’s protest at Mall of America... Mall officials are reportedly gathering estimates of how much money the stores lost on Saturday. Combined with the amount of overtime put in by police, Johnson said the numbers will be 'staggering,' and she wants the protest organizers to pay."

This is an extremely dangerous and undemocratic legal move. Imagine if it had been used against civil rights sit ins or labor union organizing. America's history would have been far different - and much to the worse.

Here's how, back in 1994, we noted the peculiar nature of malls:

Functions formerly performed by community, family and church have now been assumed not only by government but to an increasing but unappreciated degree by the private corporation. Consider the modern shopping mall, a common contemporary replacement for a town business district. Although these complexes clearly serve a public function (and are often built with considerable public concessions), they are in fact controlled by a single corporation. This corporation may, without any consultation with the persons who use the mall, enact a wide variety of laws that will be enforced by the public police. There have been repeated cases where corporate owners have sought to deny the public its constitutional rights (such as those of the First Amendment) on the grounds that the petitioners were on private property. The village square has thus been privatized.