Public, as a noun or adjective, is not confined to a single discipline, practice, narrative or theory. It is instead a complex construct that a) impacts the rules and regulations that order our cities; b) reveals cultural, political, and ecoomic priorities of a society; and c) establishes the faultlines of both city form and urban action, either individiually or  collectively, including who has the right to the city and its spaces. With this in mind, this proseminar seeks to define what constitutes the Public, historically, spatially and socially: how, when, and why it becomes legible and desirable; who gets the right to create it and for whom; and whether different historical moments or political and/or spatial contexts enable, constrain, or transform the “social production of the public.” Among other things, through lectures, discussions, and debates we will interrogate what it means to be public; of the public; in the public; for the public, with the public, or by the public. Each proposition holds a different implication for design, democracy, processes, and populations when overlaid with the compounding issues of our time — economic and social inequality, climate change, population growth and decline, territorial conflicts, health and violence epidemics, aging infrastructures, and eroding trust in democratic governance. The course will draw from scholars, practitioners, and everyday folk to build foundational intelligence and provocative interpretations of social and spatial publics — including how they are imagined, represented, and brought into view, whether through physical space, media, or collective imaginaries. Beyond its emphasis on reading classic texts, the seminar seeks participatory engagement in order to advance both theory and praxis.