The concept of ‘publicness’ refers to the quality or state of being public, that is, being open, accessible, and shared by a community or society at large. Publicness is a critical concept in the fields of philosophy, political theory, sociology, and urban studies. It encompasses ideas about public spaces, public goods, public discourse, the public sphere, and more and it is central to understanding how societies organise and govern themselves and how cities are shaped. There are, of course, multiple and diverging interpretations of publicness, which we explore further (Splichal 2016; Bentham 1994; Habermas 1991a).