Town square test

Town square test is a threshold test for a free society proposed by a former Soviet dissident and human rights activist Natan Sharansky, now a notable politician in Israel.

The test is found in Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy (first published in 2004), and it reads:

The test became famous after George W. Bush endorsed the book and Condoleezza Rice quoted it in her remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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Town square

A town square is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town used for community gatherings. Other names for town square are civic center, city square, urban square, market square, public square, piazza, plaza, and town green.

Most town squares are hardscapes suitable for open markets, music concerts, political rallies, and other events that require firm ground. Being centrally located, town squares are usually surrounded by small shops such as bakeries, meat markets, cheese stores, and clothing stores. At their center is often a fountain, well, monument, or statue. Many of those with fountains are actually called fountain square.

Urban planning

In urban planning, a city square or urban square is a planned open area in a city, usually or originally rectangular in shape.

Town square (disambiguation)

A town square is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town used for community gatherings.

Town square may also refer to:

Places

Other uses

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George Washington Memorial Park (Jackson, Wyoming)

George Washington Memorial Park is located at the center of Jackson, Wyoming. More generally known as "Town Square", the park is notable for its elk-antler arches at each corner of the park, collected from the nearby National Elk Refuge by Boy Scouts and periodically rebuilt. The square originally existed as an open space in the center of town that was made into a park in 1934. The park center also contains a stone memorial to John Colter.

The Town Square originated as an open space in the middle of Jackson where no buildings had yet been built, surrounded by more developed blocks in the sparsely settled street grid of the town. The area was used as a commons area by people and occasionally as a thoroughfare for migrating elk. In 1917 the town graded the surrounding street and obtained title to most of the land, using excess material from the grading to even out depressions in the square's surface. In 1924 the town undertook further improvements to the area, now called "the little park in the center of the town." The initiative yielded further grading. A few trees were planted, and were then indifferently maintained.