Place as a social construct has been written about very persuasively by the likes of several social geographers including Doreen Massey, David Harvey, David Sibley and several others. There’s a particularly nice book called Loose Space by Franck & Stevens that should fit nicely with the ideas above.

Space is just the medium in which interactions occur, and is informed by those interactions. Tracing the power relationships, the gestures, connections, disconnections and the things that flow along those connections is what defines a given space.

The ways that joggers give way to vendors is indicative of the power and the connections that negotiate over and through that space.