Within the framework of the article, the main attention has been focused on revealing the peculiarities of changing the configuration of public spaces in cities. Such changes are conditioned, on the one hand, by the change of the society’s social fabric - shifts in the socio-cultural, information and communication spaces, and, on the other hand, are determined by a number of methodological shifts in the scientific sphere. Dynamics of views of a number of foreign and domestic researchers on the outlined problem area have been described, special attention have been focused on theoretical structures suggested by such scientists as M. Weber, G. Simmel, F. Tunnis, I. Hoffman, P. Bourdieu, H. Arendt, J. Habermas J. Urry, Z. Bauman, J. Jacobs, W. White, R. Sennett, R. Oldenburg. The influence of modern Ukrainian sociologists on the expansion of the body of theoretical texts, devoted to the analysis of changes in urban public spaces in modern cities, has been assessed, in particular, the ideas of A. Petrenko-Lysak, A. Hodus and I. Tishchenko have been studied. Based on the methodological orientation to the understanding of the city as a cultural text, it has been proven that the urban space has a rich symbolic and semiotic load, and that publicity in the city arises as a result of the symbolic and deterministic phenomenon of «imaginary social meanings». The general characteristics of classical public spaces in cities, such as the accessibility, comfort, clear functionality, fullness of activity, equality of participants, free access to space, safety, have been distinguished. The space should occupy a concrete city territory and provide an opportunity to meet unknown people. It has been noted that modern cities and megacities limit and minimize personal space, but increase public space. It has been shown that hybrid public-private spaces are unique phenomena, the emergence of which became possible only at the present stage of cities’ development. The heuristic potential of the existence of «third places» and «fourth places» concept in urban spaces in modern society has been highlighted.