towns. In this respect, as highlighted by Culture 21 Actions, there are strong connections between the cultural relevance of public spaces and progress in areas including the right to education, access to information and knowledge, social inclusion and cohesion, and the fight against discrimination.” The organization further recommended that to enable the exercise of cultural rights, public spaces should be open and accessible (in physical, sensorial and symbolic terms), as well as inclusive of everyone. The organization further suggested that local governments can adapt four roles as regards to public space, including as funders, regulators, implementers, and facilitators, each involving different forms of engagement with communities and the private sector, and in the input mentioned some factors that may impede accessing and using public spaces, particularly for cultural purposes: • legislative restrictions to freedom of expression and assembly; • the privatisation of public spaces through restrictive uses (e.g. by shops, bars and other private concerns) and advertising; • urban regeneration and redevelopment plans and programmes that openly or inadvertently impact on the capacity of public spaces to be sites of cultural activity; • poor preservation, design, and care of the physical environment, including it being unpleasant, or inaccessible for all, as well as aspects like poor lighting and negligent design; • concerns about security and discrimination, including the perception that women, children, minorities and other groups may be subject to discrimination in physical or virtual public spaces. Karima Bennoune, the UN SR, having surveyed the range of definitions of public space, suggested that these places are: “publicly owned and accessible to all without discrimination, where people can share in the project of building a common society based on human rights, equality and dignity, where they can find ways to develop vivre ensemble, to build what they have in common and to share their common humanity, while still nurturing and expressing their own identities.” She pointed out that the management of public spaces must respect human rights. Therefore public spaces must include and respect that “they are places where various, sometimes opposing, world visions can at times be expressed and where controversies can be debated in circumstances that respect the human rights of all.” The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) lists a number of characteristics public spaces should have to contribute to substantive equality, diversity and dignity, including availability, accessibility, affordability, flexibility and good quality, and adds that, as a common good, public spaces imply a “spirit of public service without any purpose other than contributing to the overall quality of urban life.”42 42 United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), Global Public Space Toolkit: From Global Principles to Local Policies and Practice (2015), p. 24. 35