The London skateboarding scene’s global notoriety has often been dominated by the iconic and controversial “Southbank”, an infamous skate spot known locally as ‘the Undercroft.” The lively site is memorialized for its users’ resilience, whose “Long Live Southbank” (LLSB) group organized to resist their forceful removal from the space. While Southbank captures only a snapshot of the vast landscape of London skateboarding, it sets the scene for the history of contentious relationships and changing attitudes regarding skateboarders across the city.

The skateboarding craze – documented as catching fire throughout the UK by skateboarding magazines as early as 1965 – reached its apex through the late 1970s, resulting in a massive influx in skateparks and skateboarding infrastructure inspired by Californian designs (Borden, 2019). Alongside the continuing pervasiveness of skaters throughout London to the current day, the subculture has faced an ever-changing and nuanced variance of attitudes, particularly with its relationship to use of public spaces. The subculture’s presence in public space has often been faced with negative associations, being considered a nuisance, uncivil, or even stigmatized as a beacon for criminal activity, property destruction, and drug-use (Dickinson, Millie, and Peters, 2022; Németh, 2006).

However, the association of skateboarding with “antisocial” behavior is considered to be outdated from the perspectives of many urbanists and citizens. In recent years, skateboarders, and spaces which include them, have been increasingly looked to as a desirable part of public life, or even a valuable tool in development practice (Howell, 2005). Many facets of the skateboarding identity have expanded far from the sport’s traditional stereotypes. Skateparks in London have been recognized as being historically significant enough to receive national listed Grade II heritage protection (Historic England, 2014). Skateboarding has received a new sense of recognition through its designation as an Olympic Sport. As demonstrated through LLSB, London skateboarders are often highly engaged with both creating and protecting the public spaces they use, which leads to their involvement alongside other stakeholders in producing public space and urban development. With this enduring yet shifting range of attitudes, the presence of skateboarders remains a contentious issue in the politics of public space and urban development for others.

With this as a departure point, theoretically guided by pre-existing theories surrounding public space governance, the role of creative classes, and the production of space, my dissertation aims to explore the role that skateboarders play in the development, regeneration, and wider politics of public space in London. The study draws from my direct engagement with three exceptional examples of skate urbanism (Hackney Bumps, Stockwell Skatepark, and City Mill Skate
[Stratford]) within London in order to answer two main questions:

(1) What roles do skaters play in skateable public space production and use?

(2) What are the changing political, and therefore spatial, relationships between skateable space users and other stakeholders of the public realm? What are the conditions of skaters’ being seen as desirable or disruptive in public space, and how is this reflected within their spatial relationships?

Through interviews of a variance of stakeholders in the above skateable spaces across London, as well as documentation of their development processes, several significant themes emerged in terms of the nuanced roles and perceptions of skateboarders. Arguably, the most contentious part of skatepark development has been the role skateboarders play in terms of behavior norms and perceptions of fear and crime in public space governance. While these contentions certainly still exist, a range of stakeholders have come to view skateboarding as no longer a threat, and even perhaps a solution to concerns regarding the presence of anti-social behavior in public spaces through providing natural surveillance or “eyes on the street.” Furthermore, this increased sense of security has been used as a tool in order to spur development of formerly vacant and derelict spaces into lively, animated cultural centers.

Thus, the impact of skateboarders on the nature of public space development, and who it accommodates, is particularly relevant in terms of commodification of spaces, as well as economic growth. Skateboarding has been noted by supporters of skateable public spaces development as an agent in cultivating spaces which are “lively and vibrant” and provide an
“organic” street-level culture which is highly attractive to many young and affluent populations, therefore making it a highly desirable aspect of public life. Through attraction of these populations, as well as engagement with and encouragement of local populations to use the space, these processes often progress to include commodification of creative industries, or develop proximate commodities. However, many of these skating communities have committed their curated spaces to promoting inclusivity and increased engagement with the local community to use or enjoy the space, particularly through organizing free skate lessons for neighborhood and inclusive skating groups for local community members.

Through an analysis of this multi-case study, it identifies emerging themes significant to the changing roles and perceptions of skateboarding in the context of public space in London, drawing out four main themes: urban security and public space governance, physical aesthetics and spatial value, cultural vibrancy, and inclusivity and community engagement.

Overall, the findings presented in this dissertation demonstrate the complex interplay between skateboarding and regeneration of public spaces. This study contributes nuanced insight which inform shifting perceptions of skateboarding from disruptive to desirable in public space, positioning the dynamic, changing, and contradictory roles of the skateboarder in the urban public realm – the skateboarder as “eyes on the street”; as “street-level” culture; as the “home-grown Olympian; as “community builder.” Skateboarding both transcends reductions to sport or subculture, standing its ground as a mechanism for producing and redefining public space, while simultaneously allowing its users to simply use the city for play.

Furthermore, studying the production of urban form through the lens of the skateboarder allows for a powerful analysis of the larger city and the agents which form it. The act of skateboarding has long been associated with, if not completely defined by, its relationship to space. An inherent spatial practice – skaters, street-skaters in particular, have been understood by their ability to reimagine every-day city spaces around them as skateboarding infrastructure. It is an act through which the users and space both mutually produce and reproduce each other. Where urbanists see a bench for sitting, or a fountain for watching, or a rail for holding, skateboarders see their own opportunities for reproducing the space – to slide, grind, or jump over as they please. Any space, regardless of its initial purpose, can be transformed into a skateable space. This being said, positioning urban development through the skateboarder identifies more profound implications of the role that urban citizens can play in producing and reproducing urban form, as well as their conditions of desirability as catalysts for change.

References

Borden, I. (2019) Skateboarding and the City: A Complete History. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474208420.

Dickinson, S., Millie, A. and Peters, E. (2022) ‘Street Skateboarding and the Aesthetic Order of Public Spaces’, The British Journal of Criminology, 62(6), pp. 1454–1469. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab109.

Historic England (2014) Why Has Historic England Listed a Skatepark? | Historic England. Available at:
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/what-is-designation/heritage-highlights/why-has-hist oric-england-listed-a-skatepark/(Accessed: 6 August 2023).

Howell, O. (2005) ‘The “Creative Class” and the Gentrifying City: Skateboarding in Philadelphia’s Love Park’, Journal of Architectural Education, 59(2), pp. 32–42. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1531-314X.2005.00014.x.

Németh, J. (2006) ‘Conflict, Exclusion, Relocation: Skateboarding and Public Space’, Journal of Urban Design, 11(3), pp. 297–318. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13574800600888343.