Exploring Law's Manifestations in Private/Public Places

The importance of 'place' for mental and physical wellbeing is well-documented. Yet profound social, economic, and technological changes increasingly challenge those who regulate, own, fund, develop, manage, operationalise, and/or use places. This generates tensions between competing stakeholder interests and potentially affects the continued existence of different places. I present my research against a backdrop of combined cross-disciplinary concepts that include: space and place, legal geography, temporality, legal pluralism and governance. I examine gaps in the literature around the interactions between regulatory forces and exhibited behaviours, and their potential influence on the future existence of particular places. The overarching aim of the research programme is to explore law's manifestations in private/public places. To achieve this, I developed a grounded theory research strategy. I also implemented multiple methods, including law in action, doctrinal and empirical approaches, to generate robust findings and minimise methods bias. My collection of seven publications demonstrates an overarching theme of place-sustainability. The research programme makes a four-fold contribution. First, it adopts a specific combination of perspectives and methods for investigating: perceived manifestations of law; the law's quest to achieve a balance of stakeholder interests; relationships between place-related regulatory forces and exhibited behaviours; inter-stakeholder tensions; and, their combined influence on the future existence of places. Second, it demonstrates how a multi-disciplinary approach can be used to generate new understandings of place-sustainability within the context of a particular range of private/public places. Third, it evidences the complex nature of place-sustainability, particularly around: the enduring prioritisation of property ownership and occupation, the tensions between competing stakeholder interests, and the general inefficacy of a black-letter approach. Fourth, it details recommendations for combining legislative development, collaborative working, and supporting structural and cultural change to ease inter-stakeholder tensions and support place-sustainability within the context of a dynamic environment.