Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses Fall 1-1-2013 Public Space and Urban Life: A Spatial Ethnography of a Portland Plaza Katrina Leigh Johnston Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Johnston, Katrina Leigh, "Public Space and Urban Life: A Spatial Ethnography of a Portland Plaza" (2013). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 624. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.624 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible:
[email protected]. Public Space and Urban Life: A Spatial Ethnography of a Portland Plaza by Katrina Leigh Johnston A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Urban Studies in Urban Studies Thesis Committee: Ethan Seltzer, Chair Carl Abbott Hunter Shobe Portland State University 2012 ©2012 Katrina Leigh Johnston Abstract The Urban Center Plaza at Portland State University is a high profile place situated in downtown Portland, Oregon. In some ways it is the ideal university plaza providing space for eating, conversing, or limited recreational activity. It is a place that has been studied before, but not in a more in-depth method incorporating quantitative and qualitative analyses. It is also a place that has gone through several stages of development and is the target of many opinions based on casual observations, at times due to these changes.