It is possible to discern different political values and social norms in the physical structure of the city. Normative ideas about what is proper and improper behaviour in public spaces influences how the city's streets, squares and parks are portrayed through spatial planning. The public space is constantly shaped and reshaped by transformations that are simultaneously subtle and obvious – symbolic and physical. This makes the public space such an interesting topic to study, hence the essay examines the prevailing notions of public space in Swedish urban planning, by critically discussing how public space is mediated at national, regional and local planning levels and in architectural competitions. The intention is to highlight assumptions that help shape contemporary public spaces within a Swedish context and what spatial constructions (public places) these could give us. The essay conducts the study with content analysis of the Planning and Building Act, national, regional and local planning documents as well as material produced in architectural competitions conducted in the City of Stockholm between 2005 and 2014. The analysis is delimited to these types of documents because they can be considered to influence and, to some extent, to control the spatial configurations being built in the city. The essay reveals that although public space is still regarded as an essential urban space to maintain open, accessible and as a public good, the underlying assumptions mainly affected by economic perspectives tend to control the configuration of the space. The essay highlights that these notions treat public space as a container of a certain mix of activities that are considered to contribute to a desirable urban life in the public space. The essay also highlights some general implications that may occur when the configuration of the public space is partly shaped at the expense of an unmediated and varied public life.