Stand in any thriving public space: Maybe it’s the waterfront, families strolling slowly, little ones lagging behind, entranced by waves lapping against the shore. Or perhaps it’s the library: barely audible expressions of awe as books crack open into faraway worlds, heads nodding to music drifting from an audio room where local youth are learning new instruments. Or even the annual festival, women in brightly coloured feathers and sparkling accessories, submerged in the drum’s beat, breath and bodies merging as one. All of these dimensions of public life are made possible by infrastructure — buildings, closed-off roadways, natural resources, and yes, public joy.

While most people would view the civic scenes above as being supported by infrastructure that results in expressions of delight, the Public Joy Framework situates joy itself alongside hard infrastructure as an equal scaffold and container for thriving public life and collective flourishing.

Most people’s immediate understanding of infrastructure includes things like bridges, transit systems, roadways, and waterways. These physical structures and systems are, of course, essential. However, a closer look at formal definitions of infrastructure reveals that the concept extends beyond purely physical systems. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development includes institutional structures necessary for the operation of a society; the Collins Dictionary emphasizes community continuance and growth; the American Society of Civil Engineers references support for quality of life; and the World Bank speaks about infrastructure as enabling everyday living. These ontological threads clearly point to more than the physical dimensions of infrastructure.

Just as bridges carry bodies, vehicles and goods across physical divides, public joy carries the social bonds that allow people to gather and experience belonging in public life. Just as waterways connect places and enable movement and exchange, public joy connects people through shared rituals, celebrations and cultural expression. Just as physical structures support movement and safety, public joy supports community resilience and mutual aid.

These are not poetic metaphors or parallels, they are equivalencies. Where infrastructure is built, how it is funded, and who has access to it often differs significantly across countries, cities and communities. The same is true for public joy. The presence or absence of public joy — and the investments that sustain, deny or erase it — are inherently tethered to social inequities.

While the concept of social infrastructure has done transformative work expanding how we think about infrastructure beyond purely physical systems, it is still often cautiously positioned at the margins of what is considered “real,” or hard, infrastructure. Social infrastructure — the institutions, services, and relational systems that sustain public life — is frequently treated as peripheral. Public joy overlaps with the relational and service dimensions of social infrastructure, but it cannot be relegated to the margins of design and policy processes that shape public space. It is deeply entangled with questions of power, spatial justice and governance models that, quite literally, shape the built environment.

Because public joy is rooted in the built — and increasingly digital — environments that constitute the public sphere where civic life unfolds, it is inherently political. This is not to be confused with partisan politics, but rather recognizes public space as a historical site of democracy, where people hold both an inheritance and a right to participate, prosper and belong.

When public joy is understood through this expansive framework, it clearly meets the definition, function and impact of infrastructure.

The Public Joy Framework is organized across three interconnected components: civic, cultural, and spatial infrastructure. Within each, there are a set of qualitative indicators and evaluative prompts. This foundational iteration of the framework offers early-stage qualitative metrics and evaluative prompts. Alongside the Public Joy Principles, these can be used to assess public spaces, audit sites, function as a design prompt in design charrettes, and inform policy decisions.

CIVIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Public joy reveals the health of democracy in everyday life

• Indicates whether people feel safe, a sense of belonging, and freedom of expression in public space;
  
  
• Sustains dignity, openness, and respectful participation during difficult debates, elections, and public engagement;
  
  
• Signals fractures in civic systems and spaces when unevenly distributed;
  
  
• Reveals which groups must continually take to public space to advocate for their rights, and which groups have the luxury of occupying public spaces through joy;
  
  
• Reflects whether democratic rights are experienced in practice, not just written on paper.

CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Public joy transmits cultural memory and intergenerational joy across time.

• Transmits cultural memory and intergenerational joy — a counterpoint to intergenerational trauma;
  
  
• Circulates through practices such as music, laughter, adornment, food sharing, reverence, storytelling, and imagination;
  
  
• Builds resilience by shaping identity beyond histories of harm;
  
  
• Opens possibilities for the shared co-creation of culture grounded in values, aspirations, and connection to place — not limited to social identity categories such as race, gender, or sexuality.

SPATIAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Public joy operates as both a design prompt and an evaluative metric in city-building.

• Operates as a design prompt, shifting conventional planning from technical and procedural priorities toward the quality of embodied experiences in space;
  
  
• Guides consideration of how streets, parks, and public spaces can support free expression, belonging, and collective presence;
  
  
• Functions as a rigorous evaluative metric, drawing attention to how planning decisions affect collective flourishing;
  
  
• Reveals how mobility systems, policing, amenities, and environmental conditions diminish or contribute to collective flourishing.
  
  © Jay Pitter Placemaking