This symposium explores the contestation and appropriation of public space. The ways in which public spaces are used, misused, and even abused have become of growing interest to scholars across the social sciences. However, we know relatively little about the ways how public space is used, changed, and maintained. This has led to the emergence of important questions regarding public space that we begin to address in this symposium, including: How do different groups of individuals define and use public space? What types of public space are needed and for what purposes? How and why has the understanding of public space changed over time? How does the privatization of public spaces impact social stability and equality? To address these questions, we present four studies about public space that embrace a variety of empirical and theoretical contexts. Our intent is that the four papers will set up some lively discussion with members of the audience that will in turn spark new directions of research in an understudied area.