How Public Spaces Help Create A Cosmopolitan World View
Public spaces are an essential feature of a cosmopolitan city. Without them it would be impossible for there to be a cosmopolitan city as there would be no contact between its inhabitants and thus no common understanding of shared human values. In the city of Montreal, one of the biggest public spaces that enables cosmopolitanism is Mount Royal Park as it allows people from all over the world to interact amongst themselves.
Cosmopolitanism is, according to Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, “… a western notion that epitomizes the need social agents have to conceive of a political and cultural entity, larger than their own homeland, that would encompass all human beings on a global scale” and that …show more content…
The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted—a big advocate of public parks. Frederick Law Olmsted believed that parks were of a singular importance in cities as they allowed for people of all background to come together. By his own account, he “…[has] several times seen fifty thousand people participating in them…” (Course pack 124). He also highlights how important parks are in his opinion when he recounts that the New York Park and the Brooklyn Park are “… the only places in those associated cities where […] you will find a body of Christians coming together, and with an evident glee in the prospect of coming together, all classes largely represented, with a common purpose, not at all intellectual, competitive with none, disposing to jealousy and spiritual or intellectual pride toward none, each individual adding by his mere presence to the pleasure of all others, all helping to the greater happiness of each. You may thus often see vast numbers of persons brought closely together, poor and rich, young and old, Jew and Gentile” (Course pack 124). Thus, parks are a place where everyone can congregate. Mount Royal Park especially due to the sheer size of it but also due to the amount of foot traffic it experiences both from locals but also from tourists as it is considered one of Montreal’s main tourist attractions. The fact that Montreal by itself is already a city with inhabitants from a vast amount of different cultures, religions, races, backgrounds, social classes, etc. exponentially magnifies the amount of “otherness” that visitors are exposed to hence promoting understanding and acceptance of each other which in itself promotes a cosmopolitan world view in the city. In fact, for example, whenever I have personally gone to Mount Royal, I have always heard languages from all over the world being