As one of the typical public spaces in modern cities, sidewalks serve a chief role in determining the identity of the city. In addition to the functional roles of pedestrian walking and moving, sidewalks connect the city, the culture, and the people. With the enhanced quality of life and the advancement of civilization, the demand for public space in modern cities has increased and there is constant debate over what qualities constitute public space. This is mainly because the meaning and the role of public spaces have changed as the user demand evolved. Also, different countries and regions have their own understanding of what public is, so we need to consider the uniqueness of those regions. This work is an empirical investigation of how city actors interact with the sidewalks. Instead of renaming or redefining the boundary between public and private space, the study illustrates the city Danang as an exemplar case where the public and the private both collide and coexist. In doing so, it transcends the dichotomy between public and private, and takes it further to finding that the two seemingly bifurcate qualities can exist together only after they embrace each other. By analyzing Danang’s sidewalk privatization, this study goes beyond the extant understanding of private versus public, and contributes to our knowledge on the Southeast Asian street spaces. Moreover, this work aims to suggest that privatization is not necessarily negative, which differs from the local perspective that it caused reducing the quality of walking environment and crowded city streets. To this objective, this study employs four methodologies to identify the characteristics of street space in Danang: user surveys, in-depth interviews, on-site observations, and digitalization. When conducting interviews and observations, the store owners, visitors, pedestrians were divided into two separate groups of new streets and old streets for more refined comparison. The study finds the unofficial characteristics of ;;melting pot’and ;;change’ within the confinement of official street policy. While it is rightful to specify laws and obligations in case of excessive privatization, it is also important to respect the culture and the way local people use space which naturally derived from their lives. In contrast to the previously held view on its negative consequences, the study extends the understanding of the Southeast Asian street space by assessing three positive aspects of sidewalk privatization.First, space usage varies as time changes. This flexibility plays asignificant part in extending the relation between public spaces and private. Second, streets in Danang assimilates the characteristics of shared streets in that the people let others use the space when they do not use. This is not a selfish behavior, rather it is a sharing-seeking behavior. Third, public and private embrace each other. There is a stipulation that requires users to pay fees and clear white lines are drawn to avoid overt privatization, but the government adjust the fees for the poorer and let the less fortunate store owners exemptas well. The privatization of the sidewalks create complex yet diverse street scenery, and also render a space for communication, life sharing, thus further promoting more usage. Only after overcoming the chasm between public and private can the two qualities become meaningful. Furthermore, the privatization of the sidewalks leads to more street usage, which yields more vitality to the city.
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