One Person’s Party is Another’s Trash: The Creation of Urban Public Space Through To-Go Cup Laws

• In Event: 457 - Regular Session. Space and Place II

Abstract

This article explores how laws can be utilized to control public behaviors and create neighborhood aesthetics in urban public space. This ethnographic study employs direct observation and semi-structued in-depth interviews to better understand how to-go cups are influencing neighborhoods in New Orleans. Using grounded theory, I argue that to-go cup regulations are actually aimed at controlling littering in a neighborhood as well as limiting public drunkenness and rowdiness. To-go cup laws greatly influence how a neighborhood looks, the type of commerce it may have, and what public behaviors people will engage in when utilizing the public space.

Author

• Robert Kappel, State University of New York-Buffalo and Tulane University