Question 1.When the city of Harriston rebuilt its riverfront, planners promised that the new district would "belong to everyone." In practice, the phrase guided decisions in ways its authors may not have foreseen. Because no resident could be excluded from the public promenade, the planners reasoned, the space would be most successful if it offered nothing that any particular group could claim as its own. Murals were rejected as too partisan; a proposed memorial to the city's mill workers was set aside as too narrow; even benches were arranged to discourage lingering groups. The result was a promenade that was technically open to all and emotionally claimed by none. Critics noted that the older neighborhood squares the project replaced had been shabby and contested, yet people had argued over them precisely because they cared. The new promenade provoked no arguments at all. One former council member observed that the planners had confused the absence of conflict with the presence of community, treating a place everyone tolerated as if it were a place everyone loved. The phrase "belong to everyone," as the planners interpreted it, most nearly meant that the space should: