“NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, Civic Signals, The Social Science Research Council, and The Knight Foundation invite you to a discussion on public spaces in the series on “The Shift,” featuring Eric Klinenberg, Toni Griffin, Chelina Odbert, Tony Ageh, Eli Pariser, and Mona Sloane. In the first episode, this series will examine how we develop digital forms of public space as much of our social life moves online, and how this shifts our sense of community. What is the role of public space in society? What can public space do (and not do)? What do we lose when we lose physical public space, and how do people make up for that in the digital realm? The discussion will address these questions by exploring how vital public spaces are enacted virtually – such as the library, the park, the street -, looking at what makes these spaces civically useful in both their physical and their digital form, and asking what we can and must learn from this for a post-COVID-19 world.”