It's noon on a soggy Sunday at Occupy Vancouver, a small village spread across dozens of tents. Several larger structures house amenities—an eatery, a library, a first aid station—meant to reinforce the occupiers' posture of permanence. Most sit on the north plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery, the city's de facto public square. Some recent arrivals snake south along Howe and Hornby streets, flanking the building with wooden pallets and tents and tarps.

"Mic check!" yells a man.

"Mic check!" repeats the audience via human microphone.

"There are 175 tents!", yells the speaker.

The human mic first echoes the words, then supports them with loud whooos and wheees.

A sleepy camper walks by with a foamy toothbrush in his mouth. Another carries a steaming mug of coffee and a halved avocado. Volunteers at a so-called "infrastructure tent" hand out dry clothes and blankets next to a work yard with a muddy wheelbarrow, stacks of long two-by-fours and a pungent fresh-cut wood smell. A lone drummer beats a djembe next to the large fountain (now drained) and small groups of people lunching and conversing. When an official with Vancouver Fire & Rescue Services strolls by, a granola camper type with a headset springs to mock attention and offers an exaggerated hand salute, which the man returns with a confused half-smile.

I'm here to talk to people about the role of the public square, historically the beating heart of civic gatherings, from markets and concerts to fringe protests and sparks of revolution. Here in Vancouver, the city's suddenly lively central public square is a hot election issue, as city hall hopefuls grapple with the popular "should they stay or should they go" debate and all the whys and hows that come with it. NPA mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton says she'd disperse the protesters within seven days of getting elected. Incumbent Vision Vancouver candidates maintain a wait-and-see strategy, fearing a repeat of violence seen in cities choosing a hard-line approach, but acknowledge the protest cannot continue indefinitely, citing worries about health and fire safety.

A new public square even gets explicit mention as one of the promises in Vision's 2011 platform. Councilor Andrea Reimer tells me on the phone this promise would exist regardless of Occupy Vancouver and that it's an element of a broader public spaces plan aiming to build pedestrian corridors between existing infrastructure. There's no clear budget or timeline as staff study possible options, but Ms. Reimer says the holy grail of a new public plaza would involve closing Robson Square to car traffic. That would create a contiguous pedestrian-only space between the south steps of the art gallery and the law court complex, but would also sever a transit artery at a point that doesn't offer many bypass opportunities.

"That one square of Robson is critical to the trolley bus network heading in and out of the West End," says Ms. Reimer. "There are ways around it, but you'd need to think those through."

I ask if overnight protests would be welcome in a custom-built public square of the future, but it's clear we're really talking about the present when her answer turns to the Lockean Dilemma at hand:

"You have an absolute charter right to freedom of expression. There's no question about that. But your right to freedom of expression does not supersede anyone else's. The second issue is health and safety and there has to be a bottom line on that. So it's sort of a day-by-day, hour-by-hour monitoring to make sure the people are as healthy and safe as they can be."

I also kick the public square idea by Gordon Price, director of the city program at SFU and former (six-time) NPA city councilor. I want planning advice, but the politician in him is a louder talker, so Mr. Price says it's smart to include public square plans in the Vision platform, given recent lessons of the Olympic Games and the Stanley Cup Riot.

"As a policy plank, it makes sense. There's a clear public interest in it, it's imaginative, it's doable, maybe, and now it's a good time to think about it," he says.

But he quickly casts doubt on the successes of any plan that includes taking trolley buses off Robson Street. He'd rather see officials navigate the jurisdiction puzzle (the gallery sits on provincial land leased to the city) to remove the fountain from the north side of the art gallery plaza. That would create more open space for people to gather in a place Mr. Price says is no accidental choice for protests.

"It has to be on the way to something. That's one of the key reasons the art gallery steps work. That gives you an audience, if you're a busker, or a demonstrator, or have something to sell, or just want to watch people," says Mr. Price. "The second big point, a public square should not be designed just for those rare occasions when you're having big public moments, whether they're a celebration or a demonstration. Most of the time the square is going to be empty of any organized activity, so programming is as important as the space itself. One of the successes of Portland's Pioneer [Courthouse] Square is that it's constantly being programmed."

Remembering those words, I loiter around a large information board packed with the day's programming at Occupy Vancouver. Langara political science instructor Peter Prontzos is up next to talk about the Greek crisis and the importance of civic engagement. Incumbent council candidate Ellen Woodsworth is scheduled to appear at 4:15 pm, ahead of several other speakers, then a flash mob zombie dance party and the evening's general assembly at 7 pm.

Still, nobody cares to speak into my recorder and even when I put it away I'm largely dismissed as a curious outsider on a need-to-know basis. Frustrated, I stick my head into a press tent. I know you're not the leader and that you can't speak for the group, I tell an aging hippie inside, applying what I learned from past declined interview requests. I just want an opinion on whether you would occupy a place designated for occupation.

"The location doesn't matter," says Arne Hansen, tea entrepreneur and cofounder of Adbusters magazine, the anti-consumerism publication that helped spark New York City's Occupy Wall Street. Mr. Hansen is here out of personal interest, playing press liaison for the day after getting kicked out of volunteering at the tea tent for yelling at nearby smokers. 

What if the rest of the 99 percent want to use this public square, I challenge.

"If they kick us out of here, we will just move to the mayor's house. That's what they're calling city hall now," he says with a laugh. "There's lots of space and a big organic garden out there anyway."