the future of semi-public space in america

so I posted this in the borders thread: http://www.grist.org/#/urbanism/2011-07-25-the-importance-of-sustainable-third-places-in-the-city and the subject's been on my mind lately. maybe it's just interesting to me, I dunno. basically borders closing has bummed me out for entirely-non-book reasons. in my hometown there were two borders, the first was an enormous 4 story building that essentially served as the geographic and commercial heart of downtown. another was in a suburban big-box strip mall - the only option for public space in the sprawlyish area. both served purposes that can't be replicated. the book (and music) stores they replaced generally aren't coming back. starbucks lives on, as do many coffee shops. it seems...reasonable? to guess that coffee shops of some sort will exist 30 years from now. the institution has grown over the last decades, my immigrant dad prob wouldn't have suggested hanging out in a coffeshop in the pre-starbucks era, loves going today. so coffee shops and bars aren't going anywhere. what else? would we even need semi-public space if we had more decent public space?

in the future I will be downloading my coffee

I'm fascinated by how Borders and Barnes & Noble took over the type of space I had at the library as a kid--this struck me especially being at a B&N in Rockford, Illinois, on a Friday night and seeing kids running around, teenagers hanging out, adults reading stuff for self-education.

What I find most interesting now is that companies that sell stuff that has no sensory aesthetic--banks, insurance companies--are moving in to take the place of what Borders had. State Farm Insurance and ING Bank are opening semi-public hangout/coffee/work/meet/learn spaces.

Does it seem like a bad idea to allow private companies to provide all that space for public use and/or events because then they sort of control/regulate the public uses, or am I just being alarmist?

at the very least i find it pretty gross

libraries actually seem like more of public space than ever, as they're transitioning from 'place to check out books' to 'place to use computers and wifi, take classes, check out books/music/DVDs. but there's definitely a class aspect to it...you generally do not see upper-middle class people just hanging out in the public library. xp

I don't really think "allow" is the right term, it just seems like more people are choosing to flock to the semi-public spaces provided by these private companies. Its not as if public libraries are gone just yet, but they simply aren't attracting people like they used to. I mean, as much as I love having hundreds of free private reading spots to choose from when I go to my local library, I'm constantly depressed by how empty it is.

but it's not like these companies are privatizing anything, laurel - they're just filling the public space gap that exists regardless, for reasons beyond their control.

Nono, yes, I see that. But y'know we don't really value public space in our planning and spending here, so if we just kept using what corporations give us, could that turn interesting at some point? Maybe only in science fiction.

I've taken my four-year-old daughter to both B&N and the public library. I think we much preferred the library. The kids section was bigger. She could run around and touch the books while at B&N, I'm constantly feeling that "you rip it, you buy it" rule. We sat down in some rocking chairs and I read her a couple of books she found. The library is in its own building downtown, so no strip mall complications. And there's this satisfaction of hanging out there, an ownership that comes from having paid my taxes and free from any weak obligation to buy anything otherwise I'm loitering.

yeah i can't wait to hang with friends at the bank
xps

bank party tonight!

yeeeaaaah!
i srsly wonder what would happen if banks and etc really did become appealing as hang-out zones to the masses...

the busiest libraries, in my experience, are those in a busy downtown core or a busy mall - as in, they're part of a broader destination. whereas it seems that Borders and B&N in most cases (outside of big cities) are in strip malls, so they become a destination in themselves? just thinking abt this

citibank ATMs are now pretty high-tech, I very rarely need to interact w/ a human. so banks should just be 40 ATMs + one DJ.

What about taverns, barber shops and McDonalds?

there's also the appeal of being a consumer rather than a citizen. this is the real historical change in identity/self-perception that is also at the core of this issue, imo.

lolll 40ATMS+1DJ

So in a big bookstore chain, where you can buy not only books but music and movies and coffee and food and toys and yoga mats, there's broad consumer appeal, and thus a sense of inclusion - you the consumer belong there, in this space, which you do not own but is there for you anyway; in this way, the means lose importance to the ends.

And then we have public space, which the citizen does in fact own (via living in a municipality with services, paying taxes, etc), but which in most cases appears to have a limit to its uses - it seems more controlled (policed), with both too few entertainment and leisure choices, as they are ultimately made by public officials, and at the same time too many, as the choice is now with us, here in the panopticon.

one nice thing is how relatively cheap and easy it is to get wifi for a public-public space. I think it can add a lot of value to underutilized spaces.

I will admit that the one thing missing from my porn perusal is a nearby ultimate frisbee game

And theoretically, true public space doesn't make people feel rich or poor, as it is for everyone, from homeless to independently wealthy dogwalker
I guess i'm thinking a lot about parks in this case.
Indoor public space though? With the freedom of a park? Far too few spaces like this - community centres, the foyers of libraries and museums, mall walkways? I think this is part of why winter in Montreal can be so damn brutal and why a lot people take up winter sports.

xp
free and reliable wifi does totally work! in the few public spaces it's available...

In what sense are you using "mall"? Shopping malls are semi-public space, aren't they?

do libraries count as "semi-public" or just regular ol "public"? they are great btw, though budget cuts worry me

i would like more outdoor cafes for old men to sit at and play checkers. ideally they serve both espresso and alcohol as well as sandwiches and look out over a gorgeous 16th-century palazzo

yes, malls are semi-public, that's true even if their common spaces are often used like indoor parks, shouldn't really be in that list
i think libraries are considered full-on public spaces

the future of libraries:

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/283013_10150264014439704_540944703_7305326_7907444_n.jpg

i wish we could in north america sometimes go back to the old definition of mall
xp
haha so many confused senior citizens

I wonder how many kids get to the national mall and ask where the stores are

I guess enclosed malls count as semi-public but they exist in their own world. a large mall is more its own city than a semi-public spot within a city. usually.

i remember reading someone propose we take that all the way and add housing to them

what about those faux-public space malls, that are designed to look like old-fashioned main streets with public squares that are privately owned, and in the case of Emeryville, CA's Bay Street is right by the freeway.

god that area is horrible

i think it was modeled after San Jose's Santana Row, which also includes housing.

when I go to my local library, I'm constantly depressed by how empty it is.

my local library is always packed, even despite the creepy librarian dude

(not ned)

In Deptford there's a library/swimming pool which is pretty amazing imo

how does that even work

I would expect every book has gone fat

whoa that is like out of my childhood dreams

Well, you walk in, and there's a swimming pool to one side and a smallish library to the other. I mean, the idea is kind of cool in theory. I don't think they'd appreciate people taking out books and bringing them into the pool.

The commodification of public space as an area for commerce, or even the use of commercial space as public space really messes with me. The fringe urban/suburban culture of North America seems so shopping mall-centric and that just gets under my skin. Instead of providing public places in our cities, we've let it get eaten by property holding companies that are only interested in keeping the space up to par if they're able to rent retail space. I feel like there's some connection here with the cities that now zone new residential development in such a away that new housing almost has to belong to a homeowner's association. I've heard that this is a big thing in Texas, in that cities can force the subdivision to handle its own garbage collection and sewage systems. It's like people are getting smaller government by overpaying for less effective services.

That's kind of the end game, isn't it? Smaller government, fewer actual public spaces, and public space that is fragmented and suffers for it. I kind of feel like we've bottomed out on this and things are getting better now, right?

have you ever read Jennifer Government

Hah, I can't remember if I finished it, but yes.

Well, you walk in, and there's a swimming pool to one side and a smallish library to the other. I mean, the idea is kind of cool in theory. I don't think they'd appreciate people taking out books and bringing them into the pool.

― salsa shark, Wednesday, July 27, 2011 2:20 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^^ Outstanding post/display name combo

i wish we could in north america sometimes go back to the old definition of mall

Sadly at first I thought, "What, with like a Sam Goody's or Adladdin's Castle?"

a few years ago I took a tour of the boston bay w/ one of the founders of save the bay, and he talked a lot about how private companies can contribute to transforming public spaces in a positive way, and about how non-privatization can create sterile public spaces (those govt-maintained tomb-like facilities)

so boston bay got "saved" via bringing private interests into it, when there was money and an audience people cared about salvaging the nature aspect

http://www.savetheharbor.org/index.php/about-shsb

About Save the Harbor/Save the Bay

Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s mission is to restore and protect the harbor and the bay, and to reconnect Bostonians from every neighborhood, regional residents and visitors alike, so that we can all enjoy the benefits of the enormous public and private investment in our revitalized harbor and waterfront.

We are not your “typical” environmental organization, and we don’t simply turn to government to solve every problem. Though we understand that government can make a difference, we know it can’t do everything. We thrive on our entrepreneurial spirit, and we are particularly proud of our track record of leveraging public dollars with foundation funds, private donations, and corporate support.

Working together, we have expanded our focus beyond clean water to include how to best realize the recreational, cultural, and economic potential of investment in our harbor and waterfront. The most important resource that we can bring to the harbor is people. We develop and implement strategies that make the harbor and waterfront an exciting and compelling destination for everyone. We are looking at models in other world-class waterfront cities to help us develop events, programs and destinations here in Boston.

his point was "I want a starbucks on boston bay, and so do you"

man i can not understand wanting to hang out in a borders at all

i have a lot to say about this topic but instead i'll just direct you to the work of william h. whyte.

the "social life of small urban spaces" video used to be on youtube but it was pulled. this is a start:

http://vimeo.com/6821934

Before it closed down my wife and I would sometimes hang out in Borders, drink coffee, I'd look at comics or other books, she's look at magazines, we'd chat with other people there, etc.

im not judging or anything, i think that w/the exception of local coffeehouses and bars (which are basically designed to be commercial spaces to sit around in) none of these other things ever have any appeal to me. idk, the whole idea sorta creeps me out

sometimes you just need to kill an hour or two.

you can feel less guilty about not buying something at borders/b&n/starbucks because lolfacelesscorporation - I think that's part of why it feels more semi-public than a small bookstore even.

whenever I'm able to go to a museum on a weekday I feel so rich, like I own the place or something

have their policies changed over time? Like whether or how soon you are asked to leave if you aren't consuming properly?

if I'm able to ignore all the security guards tailing me xp

what about those faux-public space malls, that are designed to look like old-fashioned main streets with public squares that are privately owned, and in the case of Emeryville, CA's Bay Street is right by the freeway.

i don't particularly care for that type of open-air mall, but sometimes it's the only real walking people get to do. with the old style malls losing favor, people were just driving from one store to another, having to park in a new space every time. big multi-story parking structures are more land-use efficient and get people out of their cars for multiple trips.

TBH hanging out in Borders wasn't that fun; the only times I've done it have been when I was waiting to meet up with someone and I wanted to kill time by browsing for books beforehand. They had comfortable chairs but I never, ever went there as straight hangout destination.

I don't mind Starbucks, though; there is usually enough variation between different locations to retain some sense of personality and the quality of the coffee tends to be predictably acceptable (rather than the crapshoot you go through with your local, which even if you do find a good one will quickly become overrun with overeager students who have just discovered hemp clothing)

I don't think borders or b&n would ever ask someone to leave or buy something. xp

one of my fondest memories is buying underwear at a marshalls w/ a friend when we realized we missed the bus and had to kill 30 mins

my suggestion, open air underwear stores/swimming pool/library

you can feel less guilty about not buying something at borders/b&n/starbucks because lolfacelesscorporation

Why Borders is now OP.

i'd also direct you to variations on a theme park, edited by michael sorkin.

http://www.amazon.com/Variations-Theme-Park-American-Public/dp/0374523142

lol actually I've hung out at the cafe inside of a B&N, because it was a Starbucks

ok to be fair lots of this has to do with the amount of available space around you i guess - theres a ton of public space around me so i have the luxury of that, i might feel pretty different if i didnt have that - still man why not go to a library? thats the part i dont get

xpost re kicking peeps out: idk, they def do that, but pretty much just in a roust the homeless sort of way i think

the library is great but the hours are limited, and for some people (i don't really care), the presence of homeless loiterers is a turn-off.

The library would not have been a reasonable meetup place because the eventual destination that I was going to with my meetup (DISCLOSURE: yes it was my wife) was near the Borders, not near the library. Also, up until this February when my office moved next door, going to the library would have required going out of my way home to get there, whereas there was a Borders next door to our old location and another one right on a T stop on my way home.

because libraries have fallen behind in their ability to market their space, and people have been trained over several decades that hanging out in retail areas is a thing you do

i don't particularly care for that type of open-air mall, but sometimes it's the only real walking people get to do. with the old style malls losing favor, people were just driving from one store to another, having to park in a new space every time. big multi-story parking structures are more land-use efficient and get people out of their cars for multiple trips.

Yeah, Santana Row really isn't that bad, although it replaced the old Town and Country which was much nicer but kind of poorly designed pedestrian-wise. http://www.flickr.com/photos/14696209@N02/3736577276/

I hate the Grove in LA because of what it did to the Farmer's Market, but on it's own it's not a bad concept and would be a great replacement for any indoor mall or generic strip mall in the suburbs.

Perhaps the problem is that there isn't enough mixing of public and private. If a family has to drive to a store to buy some clothes, then drive to the library to check out some books, and drive to a park in a third location, they might be more likely to just go to a mall, buy the books at B&N, eat some lunch, and enjoy what little pseudo-park space is there. What if we built libraries inside of malls and parks adjacent to them instead? Another possibility is to force private malls to fund these public services within their development.

the library is great but the hours are limited, and for some people (i don't really care), the presence of homeless loiterers is a turn-off.

Yeah, I was going to say the great advantage private spaces have over public is the ability to kick out homeless people.

i have often wondered if the reason for the thriving library in my town was directly due to the fact that neither borders or B&N ever managed to plant a foothold here

There's a library that's been undergoing renovations around here that temporarily set up in two empty storefronts at the local mall. The mall apparently tried bribing them with incentives to stay in the mall since they haven't been at capacity!

No one fell for it, though, since the library's original location is next to a park and walking trail system, in the actual residential area, and doesn't involve traversing a giant parking lot to get to books.

xp: MN strikes me as a library-friendly state regardless; I know that without fail I will see library books in ppl's houses when I come to visit, whereas in MA it's like going condor-spotting

you can feel less guilty about not buying something at borders/b&n/starbucks because lolfacelesscorporation

lol yeah, for the price of a single coffee I'd read like $50 worth of trade paperback comics.

...which, admittedly, would only cost $20 from Amazon

yeah that might be part of the deal too - when somebody upthread mentioned never seeing upper-middle class peeps in libraries i was totally confused. xxpost

for me, the importance of B&N and Borders was mostly felt in high school, when the local record shops closed, public transit took forever, and all the independents were either shuttered or so cluttered as to prohibit casual, long-term browsing. i could always ride my bike to Borders or B&N, and despite my dislike of the spaces themselves, spend hours looking through poetry books or photography books or the gay/lesbian section. eventually, i stopped going to them because i moved up and on and etc., but i still remember how lonely 15-year-old table would bike to Borders on a friday night, pick two or three big art books to peruse, smoke a spliff and just zone the fuck out on art for hours.

with the old style malls losing favor, people were just driving from one store to another, having to park in a new space every time.

How weird this psychologically, and yet so true. Here are two malls that sit across the street from one another. The first is an outdoor strip-styled mall and the second is an indoor mall, first opened in the early 70s.

Given the choice between going from Target to Barnes & Noble (where the red mark is), most people will get back into their cars, drive to the northern part of the parking lot and get back out again. If they chose to walk, that trip along the sidewalk is .145 miles.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35749568/Screen%20shot%202011-07-27%20at%202.08.09%20PM.png

But at the indoor mall, it's nothing doing for someone to walk from one side to the other, not even including those weird senior citizens making their laps in their Reeboks. It's almost a quarter mile from one side to the other, but you wouldn't dream of someone going back outside the mall, driving around the building and parking next to an alternate entrance.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35749568/Screen%20shot%202011-07-27%20at%202.10.03%20PM.png

If only there was a monorail at the first mall...

minor spin-off, but related to the idea of housing in malls, libraries in malls etc, theres a project here in MPLS/STPL called the rondo community outreach library that has low income housing and fairly pricy luxury condos in the floors above it which is an awesome idea imo. its also a badass library.

http://www.stpaul.lib.mn.us/locations/rondo.html

Another possibility is to force private malls to fund these public services within their development.

any kind of public dedication has to pass some kind of "not arbitrary and capricious" threshold. the mall developer's legal team could decide that a public use could take away from the mall's ability to generate income from that space.

someone mentioned barber shops earlier on, which is interesting - i feel like if you work with the idea that existing public spaces are shitty, in decline, or being commodified, you end up with people having to decide to congregate somewhere that has a practical purpose but in which it's pleasant to spend time. there's a scale thing, here - hanging at the record store or w/e is not necessarily viable for more than five people - but it brings up cafes and bars, and the integration of cafes into other spaces.

the old estate agent i used to rent from had a cafe. super depressing.

Usually the parking lots don't even connect correctly! There will be a sidewalk across the front of one strip mall, then nothing but parking lot and roads with no spots for pedestrians to cross, then a curb or strip of grass before the next strip mall.

xx-post
I think the most ridiculous I've seen is similar to your first picture but with frontage roads, in Springfield, Missouri. To get from one side to the other, you'd have to drive a block down the frontage road, get on the real road, drive a couple blocks over to the other entrance, and then in.

Another possibility is to force private malls to fund these public services within their development.

i want to photograph some of the mall here's 'communal spaces' - there's so little investment in any kind of social dynamics, there's barely an opportunity to rest between shops without buying oversized cookies. there's a v good malcolm gladwell article about one of the innovators of shopping mall design, & the psychology of hustling people through, ensuring passage past the max number of stores en route to the exit. i don't know, i don't wanna hang around in a mall anyway.

Given the choice between going from Target to Barnes & Noble (where the red mark is), most people will get back into their cars, drive to the northern part of the parking lot and get back out again. If they chose to walk, that trip along the sidewalk is .145 miles.

Yeah, I've always found it weird that people will jockey for the best parking spot but then end up walking miles back and forth inside of the mall.

But part of it is just a question of where it's pleasant to walk, right? Like in your first picture, walking across the concrete next to the parking lot is not an appealing prospect, while walking past some other shops is sort of considered part of the whole shopping experience.

Pretty sure a lot of these malls get subsidized services and reduced taxes out the wazoo since they provide jobs and "public space" and then let any public amenities immediately go to shit when they have a few empty storefronts

but i still remember how lonely 15-year-old table would bike to Borders on a friday night, pick two or three big art books to peruse, smoke a spliff and just zone the fuck out on art for hours.

this is v evocative & affecting btw, i had that feeling with libraries, they gave me what i thought people must get from shoplifting, & they were still kinda empty

Did anyone else ever have their parents drop them off at the mall as an early teen? It hardly ever was a thing I did, but it's kind of a cultural institution in 80s movies

and then they become the "ghetto" malls when the newer, nicer mall with more tenants opens up across the road. (xxp)

Here's another one:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35749568/Screen%20shot%202011-07-27%20at%202.30.22%20PM.png

Why not flip the property in the middle and have the stores back-to-back with the parking lot surrounding it, as opposed to that sea of asphalt.

You're even creating the potential for a similar situation here to what happened in Georgia with the woman who was arrested for jaywalking after her son was killed.

Did anyone else ever have their parents drop them off at the mall as an early teen?

haha yes, constantly

any kind of public dedication has to pass some kind of "not arbitrary and capricious" threshold. the mall developer's legal team could decide that a public use could take away from the mall's ability to generate income from that space.

i want to photograph some of the mall here's 'communal spaces' - there's so little investment in any kind of social dynamics,

Yeah, I'm not confident that the idea of forcing developers to improve these things is something that would ever actually happen or work. But I also don't think you're ever going to stop people from shopping, so I like the idea of somehow improving malls.

you end up with people having to decide to congregate somewhere that has a practical purpose but in which it's pleasant to spend time.

Yes, exactly. I face this problem a lot. I work at home and often feel like getting out of the house. I go on walks by myself out in a state park but I also have a need to be around people, out and about in the city, etc. But you kind of have to have a reason for doing that.

and then they become the "ghetto" malls when the newer, nicer mall with more tenants opens up across the road. (xxp)

i think it was chris rock that had a routine about "white people" malls vs the "black people" malls that the white ppl used to go to.

the problem was always that the libraries near me as a teenager didn't have what i wanted to look at— i loved the library, and visited it often, but asking somebody who had known me and my parents since i was 10 where the gay/lesbian section was located wasn't something i could do. plus their art books sucked.

Did anyone else ever have their parents drop them off at the mall as an early teen?

They used to close the mall except for the hallway outside of the movie theater. So we just hung out in a hall until our moms picked us up.

To be honest, I've been in very few public libraries that were a nicer environment than your average Barnes & Noble. They have a lot of the same bad design, depressingly dated interiors, and poor lighting that malls suffer from.

lonely 15-year-old table would bike to Borders on a friday night, pick two or three big art books to peruse, smoke a spliff and just zone the fuck out on art for hours

I'll miss borders liberal spliff policy

The idea of my parents letting me hang out anywhere unsupervised by adults is completely hilarious.

I was jealous of kids who got to go to the mall.

Yes, exactly. I face this problem a lot. I work at home and often feel like getting out of the house. I go on walks by myself out in a state park but I also have a need to be around people, out and about in the city, etc.

for sure. i mean i think a real plus about cafes, and kinda in a subsidiary shittiness about accessible cafes not necessarily being abundant everywhere (ones that open late &c), is that they offer public space that needn't even be sociable, just social - you go & add a social element to your private work & have a sense of community if not fraternity. you can go and sit on your laptop for two hours, but it's still v positive to have bought a drink & patronised a business & shared a table & tipped or become a regular or whatever. when i think of sociable spaces, i wonder - & i'm totally in the dark here - about like 'on the corner' and whatever that meant when miles was naming records after it. because that seems like the ultimate in both making a space public & simultaneously probably not having an appropriate intended public space to use.

I mean, most University libraries and old downtown main branch libraries are unbeatable. But your typical local branch library is often kind of bleak.

xpost to myself

Why not flip the property in the middle and have the stores back-to-back with the parking lot surrounding it, as opposed to that sea of asphalt.

related but unrelated: i've read a lot about parking, and a big thing with retail parking is making sure your lot is at least as big as the capacity it can hold on the peak shopping day of the year (typically around christmas). it doesn't matter if the lot sees half that traffic for the rest of the year; you don't want to lose a coveted christmas customer for lack of an available spot.

oh man, i *was* gonna be productive today. sigh.

i think it was chris rock that had a routine about "white people" malls vs the "black people" malls that the white ppl used to go to.

― apihopatcong weehawkul (get bent), Wednesday, 27 July 2011 20:34 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol

"Every town has the same two malls: the one white people go to and the one white people used to go to."

a lot of this probabaly has to do with formative years/age stuff - like i cant say that if i had been born later i wouldnt have developed the idea that hanging in a borders was a great time - but i spent mass amounts of time doing that same thing (well no coffee) in libraries, so it always seemed very odd that other people gravitated to doing the same thing while surrounded by attempts to sell them stuff.

My local branch library isn't so great in terms of spaces, but Cleveland Public Library is outstanding. We'll go on a Saturday and spend 2-3 hours just sitting around browsing through things.

i wonder - & i'm totally in the dark here - about like 'on the corner' and whatever that meant when miles was naming records after it. because that seems like the ultimate in both making a space public & simultaneously probably not having an appropriate intended public space to use.

I think that's an interesting though/observation

tbf Laurel, I hardly ever had that opportunity either. I've gone on about it elsewhere on ilx, but having two boys abducted in your town when you're a small kid is pretty much a recipe for overprotective parents.

the nearest mall was 25-30 miles away when i was growing up.

I mean, most University libraries and old downtown main branch libraries are unbeatable. But your typical local branch library is often kind of bleak.

the neighborhood i just moved from is a hotbed for film industry types -- the dvd section has dozens of criterion titles.

actually, my new neighborhood is an industry hub as well, but i haven't really checked out the local library yet.

a lot of this probabaly has to do with formative years/age stuff - like i cant say that if i had been born later i wouldnt have developed the idea that hanging in a borders was a great time - but i spent mass amounts of time doing that same thing (well no coffee) in libraries, so it always seemed very odd that other people gravitated to doing the same thing while surrounded by attempts to sell them stuff.

I developed the habit when Borders became the only place in town that sold Doctor Who novels; the independent store died, then Waterstone died, and B&N never carried them.

it always seemed very odd that other people gravitated to doing the same thing while surrounded by attempts to sell them stuff.

That was kind of the revolutionary thing about Barnes and Noble and Borders though, that you didn't feel like you were being sold stuff. Their business model was actually "it's ok to come and sit here for hours and read our books". The traditional independently owned bookstore often had no seating and involved someone asking if they could help you when you entered. Not necessarily the kind of environment you feel like you can get lost in and be anonymous (or smoke a spliff and zone out for expensive art books you can't afford for hours).

My branch library was awesome when I was a kid! I think up until the middle of middle school, I got my mom to take me there at least weekly, if not twice. Then I started being more addicted to computers and we moved, and I fell off.

xx-post The Borders and B&N stores have the worst restrooms around here. Maybe this spliff-smoking layabout thing is endemic to those stores.

actually given that I was pretty much raised in libraries it's kind of bizarre that I never go to them now

We'll go on a Saturday and spend 2-3 hours just sitting around browsing through things.

i love it when library visits digress & you're just collapsed on the floor surrounded by things you've pulled from the shelves.
the thing about branch libraries is really interesting, & i wonder about what it is that would make them potentially good spaces, in the absence of an instantly-accessible absorbing catalogue - feel like it's gotta be the events or classes or routines that happen there.

which obviously depends on how popular they are

the nearest mall was 25-30 miles away when i was growing up.

So was ours! But it was the closest place to buy anything, and the closest public space for teenagers to hang out in except the great outdoors, iirc.

the thing about branch libraries is really interesting, & i wonder about what it is that would make them potentially good spaces, in the absence of an instantly-accessible absorbing catalogue - feel like it's gotta be the events or classes or routines that happen there.

well the thing is, for most people they just want to check out twilight, the davinci code, girl with the dragon tattoo, and be done with it, right?

in junior high, we hung out at Round Table or Pizza Hut, I forget which one, the one had the most arcade games.

the shitty mall i went to in junior high:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_Plaza

Speaking of the earlier mention of being "on the corner":

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdrummbks/4595561966/

That doesn't work? Bastards.

Tally's Corner

Haha jb I've biked past there a couple of times recently. Should I go in, ever?

well the thing is, for most people they just want to check out twilight, the davinci code, girl with the dragon tattoo, and be done with it, right?

sure, but, if we are talking about a suburban area with the minimal array of like, stores, a hairdresser, an estate agent etc, maybe it's a compelling reason for them to become that more diverse space - like they probably are going to only be a drop-in hub for the library activity, but if you were trying to manufacture possibilities for social interaction, they seem like as likely a building as i can think of to host them? i don't really have a plan here.

what about churches

also all night massage parlours

cemeteries as social spaces have been woefully under-capitalized.

but if you were trying to manufacture possibilities for social interaction, they seem like as likely a building as i can think of to host them? i don't really have a plan here.

oh, I thought you were lamenting the lack of selection. I misunderstood what you were saying there.

well the thing is, for most people they just want to check out twilight, the davinci code, girl with the dragon tattoo, and be done with it, right?

The last public library I was in was in Bellingham, WA, and they had a service where you could pick books online and reserve them, and someone would go around the lib and collect them and put your name on the stack, and you just stopped by to PICK THEM UP. It's more like a store than the STORES ARE.

you can't really just hang out and bump into people on a random day of the week w/ a church

xpost
Hollywood Forever Cemetary puts on concerts!

Haha jb I've biked past there a couple of times recently. Should I go in, ever?

i haven't been back in like 20 years. the yelp reviews are... something.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/kings-plaza-shopping-center-brooklyn

cemeteries as social spaces have been woefully under-capitalized.

but sometimes you see some teenagers sitting on a gravestone drinking cheap drinks, and you're like, why not, i'll join the party

don't get me started on my whole "secular church" idea

^^ i was one of those teenagers

cemeteries as social spaces have been woefully under-capitalized.

yeah cemeteries were basically the first public parks! but it is hard to play baseball at a cemetery.

q: is this thread about habermas?

I'm surprised it took so long for his name to come up tbh

They make those, it's called the unitarian universalists

xx-post

I go to a for-profit secular church, but it's only open evenings and it's called a "bar"

secular churches already exist under the Unitarian Universalist umbrella

xp: damn

did somebody say habermas???

oh, I thought you were lamenting the lack of selection. I misunderstood what you were saying there.

oh no, & re: laurel's point above, their functionality as libraries, in terms of selection, can be supreme*. but i can see how lack of selection can be an issue in terms of the, 'this is an engrossing space to get lost in' aspect of big, central libraries. not that you'll actually exhaust a branch lib but it might not seem as full of infinite possibility.

you can't really just hang out and bump into people on a random day of the week w/ a church

yeah i guess. but you can on a sunday? & the library's only open between 1-5 on a sunday anyway?

* depending on whether reservation fees are an issue, which is an interesting thing in the uk, at least

cemeteries: where the party never ends

I go to a for-profit secular church, but it's only open evenings and it's called a "bar"

yeah, but they unfairly have to pay taxes! and in most cities are required to have a cabaret license if they want to have music and/or dancing. and yes, limited hours, age limitations, etc.

mordy, i kiss you for the habermas reference.

there's probably a henri lefebvre quote i can dig up as well.

secular churches already exist under the Unitarian Universalist umbrella

yeah but do they have any locations that are actually popular hang out spots / performance venues / dance clubs, that serve alcohol?

ha i was just thinking of habermas too.

speaking to the 'on the corner' thing: this is still a thing, at least where i live. i think it is in most dense urban areas. i mean, there are 'corner boys' who sell drugs, 'corner girls' who hang with the corner boys, and some old-timers who are mostly spare changing. granted, i live in a relatively fucked-up urban area, but still. when i was a kid, we did the same sort of thing in west philly.

i think that the influence of Habermas on our conversation and the way we think about public sphere is already in this thread tbh!

not that you'll actually exhaust a branch lib but it might not seem as full of infinite possibility.

and you might easily exhaust whatever niche interests you have.

and of course there are others too, i'm just doing a sweeping generalization atm. the corner is also the community center and where people go to say hi to each other and make plans.

age limitations

feel like social spaces of the under-18s should be a separate & hugely maudlin, wistful, nostalgic thread - there's such a terrible window of disenfranchisement at that age. i remember going to see a show somewhere, a couple of years ago, and driving back with a friend after, late at night. we stopped in at a service station to get petrol, and there were a bunch of kids around, like 14, 15, 16, perched on the little built up brick wall out front, leaning on the newspaper stands out front, & the service station was where the kids in town hung out. it was on the road out of town and everything.

xp - also where liquor stores tend to be located.

like maybe that you are a vibrating atom ready to explode at that age offsets your surroundings, and means that hanging around under the arch next to the mall or in a car park or whatever is bearable, but it definitely feels like a black hole of accessible spaces. because 'youth clubs' connote youth, etc.

what happened to the treehouses of our youth

Over The Edge to thread

speaking to the 'on the corner' thing: this is still a thing, at least where i live. i think it is in most dense urban areas. i mean, there are 'corner boys' who sell drugs, 'corner girls' who hang with the corner boys, and some old-timers who are mostly spare changing. granted, i live in a relatively fucked-up urban area, but still. when i was a kid, we did the same sort of thing in west philly.

i think there are still good practices of using the outdoors, or using the open areas of private space, to hang out in - barbecues in parking lots, stoops, rooftops, etc. but they're obviously variable by area/weather etc.

yeah i didn't mean for this to become that sort of thread, but i was just piping in— the only sadness i feel at the loss of these big bookstores is the loss of a place that helped me a lot during the shitty times of youth.

but it is hard to play baseball at a cemetery.

not if you dig up a bone and use it as a bat and a skull as the ball!

i really like those stories because they seem so far away & for the most part are one of the things that makes me realise i am better off now than i was then, have developed either a social infrastructure or social skills to survive with. & i hadn't even made the distinction between the privacy of a bookstore compared to the kinda overfamiliarity of the library.

The last public library I was in was in Bellingham, WA, and they had a service where you could pick books online and reserve them, and someone would go around the lib and collect them and put your name on the stack, and you just stopped by to PICK THEM UP. It's more like a store than the STORES ARE.

After the Pavement poll, I looked up the band's bio on my library's website. It was at another branch, but I was able to request it to be brought to the one closer to me.

Went in there two days later, and there it was on a shelf, wrapped in a sheet of paper with the first three letters of my last name on the spine. Used the self checkout by scanning my card and I was out the door, wondering what the hell had just happened.

I used to buy up books like that, but with the internet and cloud-thinking (and rapidly disappearing amounts of space inside my house), I'm very pleased with this new process.

I'm picturing a church of ILX where there's a central bar area with DJs, and then off of that several meeting rooms where discussions can take place. The discussion topics would be posted above the door of each meeting room and you could wander between them and listen and join in if you like. Discussion times would be limited to some pre-arranged amount of time, and people waiting in the bar could post potential new discussion topics to some kind of intranet and then vote on them in a poll. When a free room comes up, whichever new topic got the most votes in the poll gets the room for a while.

also a jacuzzi

where do we get sandwiches

Oh my god wk that is the future of public space, take me there immediately.

the waiter will be around shortly

i would think in the same place where we're having a discussion about what's on them
xps

secular church + non-sexual bathhouse

Basically it IS a forum. Like Roman-style.

haha

What if the future of public spaces is online?

actual bouncers to enforce SBs, which are decided upon house-of-parliament style, with voluble AYEs
xp

a build your own hot dog buffet bar

with plenty of field roast for the vegans

but seriously, why couldn't there be a modern updating of a Victorian gentleman's club kind of concept? Without the gender, race and class distinctions.

the shitty thing about "online space" is there isn't any space

jokes aside I think the internet does probably fill a lot of the need for social interaction. but often the semi-public spaces aren't so much about social interaction as just being around human beings - ie I go to a cafe surrounded by irl people and then I post to ilx.

as they are about just being*

I think that's starting to happen, WK--the idea of a place with the inclusivity of a gym membership but a hangout instead of just for physical exercise. Soho House is that, kind of.

BTW, typing this from an ING Cafe. They've got today's NY Times, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, Peet's coffee for $1.50, decent natural light, free internet/computers/etc...

like, no matter how much people talk about virtual space. i think there's something fundamental about direct sensory involvement/organic bodies/real space vs virtual space. like we need real space, social space, and public space to feel connected and alive. xxxp

and the alternative is deathdrone

of course "real" space is produced by us too and is virtual in that sense but thank god our legs are not vestigial yet.

I guess the appeal of the victorian gentleman's club, the continental baths, etc. is this idea that you could just stay there and never leave if you like. you can get food, drinks, entertainment, socializing, etc. And in the same way this is what developments like Santana Row are sort of trying to accomplish. Live, eat, shop, go to cafes, all in one area which you never have to leave unless you want to. I guess that was also kind of the failed ideal of a certain type of suburban development that had pools, gyms, tennis courts, communal lawn areas, and a clubhouse, all within the gated community or condo building.

the idea of a place with the inclusivity of a gym membership but a hangout instead of just for physical exercise. Soho House is that, kind of.

I wonder if it's possible to do the indie rock version of that? a contemporary updating of the Masonic lodge. a fraternity for people who would never join a fraternity.

or do online forums like this work because they are targeted to a small enough niche that we could never hope to meet all of these people IRL, but brought together globally, a community can actually be sustained?

It's definitely an old school upper class thing, but private clubs -- not country clubs, but private organizations in a city where they have a restaurant, bar, social club amenities and even rooms available for members to stay overnight for a small fee. I don't think it's really economically feasible for most people, but it sounds like such a great luxury!

if ilx was transformed into a public space it would completely blow

oh yay country clubs, awesome xxp

yes what america really needs is more members-only clubs

if ilx was transformed into a public space it would be wonderful, i think!

i'm referring to the dj/discussion room vision above, sounds kinda hellish imo

i'm still on the side of FAPs being the simple way to go here

FAPs in country clubs and masonic lodges

fwiw there aren't that many in most areas, outside of a small subset of things like country clubs

or, if you extend it:

Things like the Boys & Girls Club provide things like this for kids! Of course, it's targeted at underprivileged kids, but it's for a wide age range, there's a level of administration, activities, and community involvement.

Kind of annoying, but the glut of small gym spaces really are like a upper middle-class version of the YMCA, only without the affordability and a lot of dispersion.

yes what america really needs is more members-only clubs

So people who don't fit into those clubs shouldn't make alternatives of their own? I mean a gym is similar to a country club, but anyone (who can afford it) can join. The idea of communally available sporting facilities isn't the problem with country clubs, it's the class and racial aspects.

FAPs in country clubs and masonic lodges

they have shows in the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever cemetary!

i'm referring to the dj/discussion room vision above, sounds kinda hellish imo

I don't really disagree

I don't think more private-clubs is the big picture solution to 'not enough public space'...even if it would work for some people!

I'm not sure I get what's "semi" about these public spaces. Is it just that they're privately owned?

pretty much

http://andersonrotary.com/web/admin/images/Club%20meeting.JPG

"Okay, next we see the Led Zeppelin poll is due to come up on the fifth, but we were wondering if there would be anyone who could take that space instead. Also, we have expelled Chris from the club again. Thank you."

okay massive lol

I don't think more private-clubs is the big picture solution to 'not enough public space'.

I don't think the topic is "not enough public space" but "what is the future of semi-public space". i.e. where does the public congregate if not in the mall and at big-box stores like Borders?

that's true

the answer is "in our hearts"

mods please change topic to 'not enough public space' so I am right

potential moderator:

http://www.seinfeldonline.com/morty.jpg

ah fuck

http://www.seinfeldonline.com/morty.jpg

In my rural college town the bars serve this function, although the university library is a hopping place during the academic year.

One of my colleagues' wives asked me recently whether the internet was today playing the civic role that bars used to play. The question was more poignant since her husband is a recovering alcoholic.

university campuses themselves serve this purpose, sometimes

mods please change topic to 'not enough public space' so I am right

of course I'm taking your question of "would we even need semi-public space if we had more decent public space?" as a clear yes, so maybe that's not fair.

Live, eat, shop, go to cafes, all in one area which you never have to leave unless you want to.

heh

isnt the general trend towards the sorta co-opting of the public space by the private sector at this point? i think the starbucks/borders concept is flourishing, not diminishing - i mean REI climbing walls and mcdonalds in walmarts and so on seem to be crafting the illusion of this without actually delivering, which is the same vibe i got from borders etc, to a lesser extent.

universities are a great place to hang out, although maybe not for old people who don't know how to fit in by dressing like faculty (i.e. badly)

gyms are pretty interesting places. i can see them being semi-public in a lot of ways, especially if they have basketball courts, tennis courts, raquetball courts, swimming pools, etc. recreation centers pretty much.

cool article about bodybuilding gyms and bodybuilders as spaces that are afraid of space: http://books.google.com/books?id=q_A37BJIICcC&lpg=PP1&dq=stud%3A%20architectures%20of%20masculinity&pg=RA1-PT166#v=onepage&q&f=false

theres always been "semi-public" space in the US, as long as (longer than?) theres been real gov't-administered "public space" so the idea of business-orientated or private-owned public spaces doesnt bug me that much

provided that a) real, actual public spaces still exist and b) those semi-public spaces are accessible to all

its just another way to be all things to all people with less investment - if you can get your groceries, video games, crappy furniture at target and then buy a personal pizza from the pizza hut inside and kick back with all your stuff at the in house starbucks then you might not go anywhere else.

xpost to myself

Live, eat, shop, go to cafes, all in one area which you never have to leave unless you want to.

like where all the richest zombie apocalypse survivors live in Land of the Dead

isnt the general trend towards the sorta co-opting of the public space by the private sector at this point? i think the starbucks/borders concept is flourishing, not diminishing - i mean REI climbing walls and mcdonalds in walmarts and so on seem to be crafting the illusion of this without actually delivering, which is the same vibe i got from borders etc, to a lesser extent.

but would they be flourishing if they didn't provide something that the public is hungry for? I'm not happy about the death of the independently owned store, but I would still probably rather go to McDonalds than the "no ketchup allowed" place for example.

"with less investment"

I mean, it's actually cheaper to build real urban areas in the long-term

like where all the richest zombie apocalypse survivors live in Land of the Dead

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Wednesday, July 27, 2011 5:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

or like.... a big city!

its just another way to be all things to all people with less investment - if you can get your groceries, video games, crappy furniture at target and then buy a personal pizza from the pizza hut inside and kick back with all your stuff at the in house starbucks then you might not go anywhere else.

why would you take your furniture and videogames to the in-store Starbucks

it seems like you're conflating several competing reasons to go into these types of megastore into one mish-mashed nightmare scenario, plus as long as the in-store Pizza Hut continues to smell like cat food it isn't going to draw EVERYONE

eh by saying flourishing i am not making judgements (i mean i personally hate that crap but whatever) - its more a statement of fact really. i think theres a general shift towards the idea that this is what big businesses are supposed to do

xpost no i was talking about how its cheaper for the companies that do it re: less investment, not on the total investment side

i would feel a bit weird hanging out at a university if i wasn't going to that university or didn't have friends there
xp

i think airports are kind of like semi-public spaces too. at the airport in burlington, vermont, there are these two rooms you can go to, even if you're not going on a plane, and watch the planes land and take off. it's a pretty social place!

like where all the richest zombie apocalypse survivors live in Land of the Dead

well, ok but also the do-everything-in-one-place promise is the real embodiment of a car-free, pedestrian lifestyle and the nostalgic fantasy of an old-time neighborhood, isn't it?

lol maybe it's just me but part of my mind always translates statements like "it's a pretty social place" as code for "lots of people have illicit public sex here"

or yeah, what Max said
xpost

haha max, yeah, true. and probably a bit of what romero was trying to say, the way he says things like that re city vs suburbs. but with zombies.

what i am getting at is that this idea of creating public spaces is rampant in the new business concept - the idea that you are selling a brand not a product is def not new, but there is a reason behind it. all the indie peeps in my industry are basically trying to find a way to become a "destination" store, which is marketer code for some shitty couches and a tv showing steve vai videos.

the semi-public spaces of DJP's mind

lollll dan! noooooooo!

guys this is boring, u wanna hang out at the facebook

anyway im also not worried about retail stores creating public spaces because as far as i can tell the only way people have ever made a profit providing public gathering spaces is if they also require that you purchase a marked-up mood-changing beverage of some kind

what i am getting at is that this idea of creating public spaces is rampant in the new business concept - the idea that you are selling a brand not a product is def not new, but there is a reason behind it. all the indie peeps in my industry are basically trying to find a way to become a "destination" store, which is marketer code for some shitty couches and a tv showing steve vai videos.

That in and of itself is a presumption on what "destination" means in the context of a guitar store, isn't it? Like, I would expect that the demographic would skew more towards private and public practice rooms and maybe an area where seminars on guitar maintenance/repair and various playing techniques were offered, possibly even a small bookable performance space...?

Just going to the guitar store to watch TV seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of what a guitar store is, IMO.

city as national park

to me, "destination store" means free internet and a new challenge in blocking out the offensive environment
but i don't know, people seem to spend a lot of unnecessary time in the apple store...

fuck america imo

yeah apple stores are definitely semi-public spaces!

and they dont even make you buy a drink!!

People spend time in the Apple store because they all have 8 million copies of the same identical machines and the let you touch them

That in and of itself is a presumption on what "destination" means in the context of a guitar store, isn't it? Like, I would expect that the demographic would skew more towards private and public practice rooms and maybe an area where seminars on guitar maintenance/repair and various playing techniques were offered, possibly even a small bookable performance space...?

yeah, guitar center opened up a rehearsal space like that around here called GC Studios. Not connected to a store though.

my guitar store growing up was Guitar Center in San Jose which was a cool complex of guitar store, private lessons place, used gear store, rental store, and demo studio.

dan, i agree w/you, but i am just saying that in the last 5 years in particular, industry wisdom is that you need to set up a space for people to hang out and whatever - i have to assume that the trade pubs for guitar stores are similar to those for other industries, so i think this is a trend that will be on the rise for some time

xpost, I mean Guitar Showcase

xp: looking forward to swinging by your store and visiting your espresso bar

apple stores are reprehensible because i can't afford their computers

people have seriously told me to meet them at the apple store, in more than one city i've visited, when neither of us needed anything at the apple store - so yeah i guess it actually is a destination store and semi-public space!

my high school partners with the local apple store - one night a semester the kids take over the apple store and use it as a public space to show off their multimedia projects (each computer is shared by 2 or 3 kids)

jjj, get a liquor license for yr store and profit!!$$!!

I guess I don't understand the logic behind "make a space for them to hang out" if that space isn't geared towards encouraging/forcing people to, say, interact with your merchandise and/or store staff

If I want to hang out and watch TV, I have a house

btw i also suspect that "hang out space" is often code for "place where chicks like dudes moms and girlfriends can sit" because my industry is full of fucking troglodytes so

they should sell apple-branded soft drinks in those weird capri-sun packages with straws so there's no fear of computer damage and no one goes thirsty while touching computers

hahaha wmc i actually floated that idea a while ago with a dude i know

hahaha I am imagining you playing Oprah 24/7 in your hangout area

"hang out space" means "space where people I don't necessarily know but might be interested in might congregate so I can either nod at them, or engage with them socially"

also: see "where do I find women to date, also I do not want to take a pottery class or volunteer for something"

does church count as that?

maybe this is why so many americans are ok with tax cuts for big business: they have nice cafes and sponsor high school assemblies and such

you mean a secular church like we mentioned upthread which I said was like a bar and...

yeah

also many americans work for big businesses (that is what makes them big, not their big armies of robot minions)

i can kinda get behind the idea upthread where we are learning to be consumers rather than citizens and thats where a lot of what i am talking about comes from. the endpoint of that is that if you can kinda ensnare peeps in your social space store vibe, they are less likely to go see what that other store is doing - this is def on the upswing due to the raving terrors most stores have about competing with the internet.

borders/b&N: special shout-out to the craigslist comfy chairs ppl were always scrambling for with every opportunity

you people are sick.

this is false dichotomy - the big book on "Americans are becoming less civic" was called "bowling alone"

Last I checked bowling cost $$$

the county fair cost $$$ too

but you weren't buying the pins or the ball

xp
or the rides
and carnies are terrible salespeople

county-ish fairs are free, it's the amenities that are overblown

come get your $6 snow cone

this just aint any ice

In my area there's a few city blocks that are older that have gentrified into nice mixed-use buildings with housing, small stores, and bars & restaurants. It's on the edge of downtown and while it could use some more amenities, there's enough open space in the neighborhood that the street itself is "public space." In larger cities, you actually get that, where the density of people is high enough that a park doesn't have to offer anything really awesome to get people to come there, since they pretty much live on the same block and it's just where you go.

Meanwhile, the most lol-worthy development I've seen is this mixed-use abomination in the suburbs where there are a bunch of storefronts on fakey small streets and condos. But it's basically a little complex right off a major street and the condos overlook the Target parking lot! I don't get it at all.

I'm just saying, it's not like the 19th and early 20th century was just people chillin at the public park all day, walking in circles meeting strangers for free

theres always been "semi-public" space in the US, as long as (longer than?) theres been real gov't-administered "public space" so the idea of business-orientated or private-owned public spaces doesnt bug me that much

― max, Wednesday, July 27, 2011 5:07 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Maybe there's something to that: parks that are just *there* where you live, versus parks and libraries as destinations. It's like Dan said about television -- if you live in a house, in a neighborhood, you watch tv at your place. If you live in a mixed-use neighborhood or in a more dense one, you might be tempted to go down the block to watch at a bar, or walk your dog in a park instead of running around the backyard

the walmart in my city is designed to look like a multi-block collection of tiny stores which i have always found hilarious and yet brutally cruel at the same time

those walmart fuckers really know how to rub it in

our big park in san Diego was built for the pacific exhibition, a worlds fair type of thing that was built by industry exhibitors (ie agricultural pavilion, industrial pavilion, etc). when it was done it became a park but it's still largely underwritten by corporate donors and the "public" parts (eg the zoo) are run like any other business

i think in order for a semi-public space to work there needs to be a background activity you can do there so you can always be inconspicuous if you want. like, socializing works better if it's on the side? i think that's why a club that's like "come here to hang out and do whatever" isn't more popular and wouldn't really work as well, also why shopping centers are big, because what is easier to do than shop?

MAX OTM

yes, totally, i understand - the outdoor market, the fair, the bowling alley are all places to consume goods and services too, but i think it's the proprietary aspect that is different, as in, these places seem more co-owned than corporate-owned - like, there are rules and people to enforce them, but the general vibe of these places comes from the people who go there rather than the stuff available for purchase there. does that make sense? i'm working it out in my mind right now, so...
xps xps

mh I don't get the distinction you're making except that for some reason one is "real" and one is "fake"

sounds like urban planning rockism to me

There's something to this church thing, though. My friends and coworkers who are active in their church communities always have some sort of shit going on, whether it's a participatory thing like a choir or some sort of Saturday kids social with those inflatable bouncy playgrounds and free food for anyone who shows up.

Hell, I drove by the church my friends go to and they had a sign mentioning tai chi classes on a weeknight. They also have a "coffee house" area in the basement that they use as a performance space for local music -- the public radio station even records shows there for airing later.

The distinction I'm making is that one has nobody walking on the streets, I've never met anyone who's lived there, and half the storefronts are empty. Also, it's completely artificially constructed roads that are below the real road -- it doesn't feel like actual streets, it's like by-ways through a parking lot.

Hopefully this Google Maps link works

The weird "small town" street shops are in the middle

rrobyn i think the corporations just respond to what people want

i *totally* understand going to ikea vs cycling around the neighborhood looking for garage sale midcentury

people who are at the strip mall on Saturday are often there because they're in a hurry to get to actual public events, ie kids soccer games or the beach or whatever

i dunno mh, that could be a function of local economics? because there are versions of what you're talking about that are wildly successful (Santana row, for example)

fwiw that is a country club to the south of this whole shebang

I sometimes shop at that Target because it's down the street from Costco and Trader Joe's and I do a loop through there once or twice a month

There's something to this church thing, though. My friends and coworkers who are active in their church communities always have some sort of shit going on, whether it's a participatory thing like a choir or some sort of Saturday kids social with those inflatable bouncy playgrounds and free food for anyone who shows up.

yep, and it's all essentially subsidized by the government since they don't have to pay any taxes.

They also have a "coffee house" area in the basement that they use as a performance space for local music

which presumably isn't held to the same cabaret license restrictions as a commercial space would be. I really do feel like there's some socialistic third way that's possible, in between the church, and corporate commercial spaces. Co-ops and collectives that are organized around other interests besides produce or whatever.

I think it's weird placement more than anything. That Santana Row thing looks very similar, but with a better layout and actual stores!

x-post

it feels weird to me to worry about the availability of public space in america while at the same time being judgmental about the wants and needs of the actual public

it reminds me of people who want teenagers to read more but then get all pissy that they choose to read twilight and harry potter

I'm assuming this is the Santana Row you're talking about? Seems to be in a pretty dense area.

they really should have made Santana Row pedestrian-only. letting cars drive through the middle doesn't really make it feel any more real or urban, it just makes you feel kind of constrained to the sidewalk.

rrobyn i think the corporations just respond to what people want

ain't what i want. also come on dude, this is just lazy.

you are totally building strawmen here xp to moonship

the area is pretty dense, but the idea is that it was more of a traditional strip mall setup before (although really quite an attractive one) and now it's kind of a fake-urban, mixed use area with housing above the "high street".

xp

I don't mind mixed-used destinations like that in theory. Any place where you can do multiple things -- a couple shopping stops, eating, etc. -- without hopping in your car in-between, is good.

Last time I went to that small area, there was a package delivery store, a comedy club, a bar, a restaurant, a coffee shop, and a few overpriced boutiques in the area, not all of which were on the main stretch. I think there might also be a furniture shop?

i think that a lot of corporations give people what they superficially want while also giving them all kinds of things they do not want at all

they give people what people perceive they want, in a way that benefits the corporation

Santana Row is not really a practical mixed use example though because rather than having supermarkets and stuff like that they have a Gucci store.

I think corporations give people what they want but with all sorts of hidden costs and long term effects that people don't think about.

yep, that's what i mean too

and the average consumer is not as smart as the average ilxor and doesn't get that?

i'm not actually anti-corporation; i just think that, obviously, things have gotten waaaay out of hand wrt regulations and long-term planning (economic, social and otherwise)

guys i change people's behavior for a living, let me tell you that treating the client as irrational / lacking judgment is NAGL

um

yeah uh dude you are not getting my point at all obv

wtf is this "real" city you guys keep talking about?

People don't always think about this stuff! It's not nutrition or personal finance

i dont know what were arguing about at this point but the big reason i dont care/worry about retail spaces turning into semi-public spaces is that so far no one has turned this model into a sustainable, multi-decade business!! in fact the whole point of this thread is that a business that hinged on its status as a semi-public space just _went out of business_

i don't think that's what anyone's saying. i'd argue that, these moves by big corporations, appealing to what people either actually want or perceive they want also seem to have a nice way of putting people in a position of just taking what they can get.
xpss

that's ok jjjusten because im not responding to your posts, more mh and rrobyn and wk

i mean john j is welcome to put an espresso bar in his store and REI can add a climbing wall etc etc but thats a development of the last 5-10 years, not a sea change in the way we encounter public space

i mean id argue that what borders shows at least in part is that people enjoy the _public space_ aspect of semi-public-space businesses more than they enjoy the _business_ aspect

xxpost ok dude because i was confused! carry on

people always "take what they can get" ... I like "organic cities" too, except when they turn into Mexico city or the Bowery from gangs of new york

I didn't mean to go back to our "real city" thread. I can think of lots of non-city public spaces that work well.

jeez, isn't it a good thing that malls are turning into "fake cities" with "fake parks" and "fake walking areas"?

what do you guys prefer, real malls?

nitpicking here max but starbucks/caribou have made a pretty sucessful run of doing just that. but id argue that this only works because people already think of the coffeehouse (well to the extent that they thought about coffeehouses until starbucks etc) as this sort of space.

xp to max - yes! i don't know, for me the argument isn't about people not liking and needing public/semi-public space, because of course we need that in myriad incarnations, but about the ways that public/semi-public spaces are configured having a much bigger social effect

Do not mind those when they work. I was mentioning one in specific that did not.

ah yes, i remember when a mall was just a mall

btw most universities are very happy when people from the community spend time there...talks are open to the public, as are films, concerts, art exhibitions, etc. Every university I've been affiliated with has had an administrator whose job it is to encourage good community relations.

and yeah, it is (other than the starbucks sorta thing, or for that matter endless coffee at perkins/embers) kind of a new concept, but that certainly doesnt imply that it is shortlived! trade magazines hammer on the idea that the internet will kill us all unless we "create an environment" that makes people want to go to brick and mortar stores, and 99% of the time that translates to decor and seating and flat screen tvs that attempt to make the store more like a cool clubhouse you get to go to to hang with the cool dudes that work there and your other consumer pals instead of a walgreens.

i spent five years in a "mom and pop" bookstore that had been open for 20 years for five years and is now finally closing this years (I think 30th anniversary?)

by the end, even the owner would go to borders than another independent, and we used amazon as our primary lookup database

real, fake, i don't think that matters as much as how much control/'empowerment' we feel we have in that space. so this is where buying stuff = empowerment, and that's fine sometimes, but i'm not into that being where power comes from in all public/semi-public spaces, like being around things/services you might or might not buy means you have a right to be there. it colours the situation, that's all. i mean, everything colours the situation really.

and again, its not for me, but i dont think its a bad thing per se - but if you dislike it but think it is a waning concept in retail whoo boy you have got many years of disappointment ahead of you as far as i can tell

xposts

yeah but the key thing is that you don't have to buy anything to be at the mall, vs so many "public" spaces that charge admission

skateboarding is not a crime

btw here is the whole whyte vid that the clip upthread is from

http://vimeo.com/5298850

I guess the thing I worry about when it comes to shopping malls is this or even this being risks. (Links to financial profiles of General Growth Properties and Westfield Group, both owners of tons of shopping malls). I know city and local community funds are going to be linked to tax revenue and suffer in economic downturns, but both of these groups have see their share prices quarter since 2006ish, when they peaked.

I think that old-style shopping malls are pretty OK, and I think some of the smaller outside mall or city center-style shops like the ones moonship mentioned have some merit because there are fewer shared internal resources, but it's kind of risky to rely on these for public space!

The larger malls are kind of more of a risk, because I've seen a few hit the death spiral of:
1. An anchor store or a number of smaller stores close and are empty too long
2. Property management lets some amenities in the mall degrade due to lack of income
3. More stores pull out
At this point, either local stores move in at lower rents and the mall is occupied although less luxurious, or the mall closes (or partially closes, if they can divide it) and all the remaining stores are kicked out and you have a huge derelict building that no one can use.

On the bright side though, you have all kinds of places to make movies like Dawn of the Dead and Blues Brothers and anything else where they wreck a shopping mall

Re: real vs. fake, I think there are two main problems:

One is the centralized control of real estate. We could conceivably end up in a situation where all of the commercial real estate in a given area is owned and controlled by a single corporation like Westfield (if this hasn't already happened in some areas). Of course in "real" cities you sometimes get a similar thing with one person owning several blocks or something, but I'm not sure that the homogenizing effect is quite the same.

But the major problem for me is simple aesthetics. A diverse collection of buildings from different eras is pretty much always going to look better in my opinion than a single master plan that was all built at once. These developments then inevitably start to decline and look dated all at once and have to be torn down and redone.

^^ yeah! this is my problem with Bay Street and Santana Row. Bay Street is like the place mh linked to. It is right by the freeway and the Ikea. All the stores face inward, to diminish the reality that you are quite close to one of the most traffic-jammed stretches of freeway in the entire United States.

it feels weird to me to worry about the availability of public space in america while at the same time being judgmental about the wants and needs of the actual public

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, July 27, 2011 4:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it reminds me of people who want teenagers to read more but then get all pissy that they choose to read twilight and harry potter

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, July 27, 2011 4:56 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'm not sure how much I disagree w/ you in general in this thread, cause I don't consider myself "anti-business." but it's important to mention that "the wants and needs of the actual public" are contextual and there's an enormous amount of path dependency here. the wants and needs of the actual public are the immediate wants and needs, responding to their immediate situation. borders was a response to peoples' immediate needs and wants - rly big bookstore with allllll the books - and 10 years later, cities are left with a large empty box.

I think the faux-urban bay street / santana row neighborhoods might reflect a certain market demand for public space, but I'm not willing to say that they look the way they do *entirely* because they're a clear, direct response to market demand. I think santana row could be an even more successful area if it were part of a larger, denser, walkable urban neighborhood in san jose - something that looked like soho. but this is where the 'if people wanted it, it would exist' logic hits a wall - turning santana row into a dense, walkable, transit-friendly area isn't something that even a company willing to make a massive investment could attempt. there would be enormous legal obstacles if they wanted to build at any real density, there isn't a great transit network to hook up to etc. etc.

Maybe there's something to that: parks that are just *there* where you live, versus parks and libraries as destinations. It's like Dan said about television -- if you live in a house, in a neighborhood, you watch tv at your place. If you live in a mixed-use neighborhood or in a more dense one, you might be tempted to go down the block to watch at a bar, or walk your dog in a park instead of running around the backyard

FYI when I said "house" I meant "condo"; my point is that I rarely go out to watch TV because I have one at home. There are plenty of bars around where one can watch the game and there are ppl who regularly do that; I am not one of them.

Here's the thing: so many folks who bought property in the past decade just lost tens of thousands of dollars. Would these folks now, or those who learn from them, not think it wiser to save that money, rent, and have a nice cultural/betterment/hanging-out club membership instead?

'if people wanted it, it would exist'

any "the people have spoken" argument is faulty from the outset.

yeah I mean that's true and imp in the democratic sense but it's also true when we're talking about market signals

america doesn't need semi-public or public space anymore because we have huge private spaces

fuck america imo

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, July 27, 2011 5:22 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

america doesn't need semi-public or public space anymore because we have huge private spaces

but where will we have our riots peaceful demonstrations?

you can have them as long as pizza hut does the catering

Peaceful demo at my condo, byob

who wants to come over and play xbox

there's flavorice in the freezer and mondos in the fridge

america doesn't need semi-public or public space anymore because we have ilx

http://retail.ocregister.com/2011/07/27/2-o-c-malls-to-get-trolleys/52143/

amazing

the grove in l.a. has a trolley. michael jackson wanted to buy it from them, but they said no.

btw the chris rock "black mall" routine is on spotify.

Here's the thing: so many folks who bought property in the past decade just lost tens of thousands of dollars. Would these folks now, or those who learn from them, not think it wiser to save that money, rent, and have a nice cultural/betterment/hanging-out club membership instead?

― porkpie cokeheads (Eazy), Thursday, July 28, 2011 1:11 AM (3 hours ago)

ok admittedly i got lucked in at the end of this and didnt get boned but speaking as a dude who is pretty happy to own my shit i will give a resounding hell no to this

people can own their own shit and we can have nice public plazas too, I don't think those two are at odds with each other.

from careful observation it seems that the best place to live in all of america is jjjusten's house, brb selling all my shit and moving there

There are plenty of houses that didn't dump in value, they're just not in places next to these awesome new shopping areas imo

Nah, I'm just talking about how private clubs have lasted in NYC and London in part because someone can live like a hoarder in a 500 square-foot studio but have a second home as a social space--something that has a little more sense of ownership than "the bar I love" and is a little closer to "my de facto living room." Take this idea and then add the completely egalitarian model of gym membership, and you've got something that, I think, is going to be flourishing in the next few years.

that sounds like hell

I have been to the Friar's Club, which I understand is trying to recruit a new and younger generation of members, and frankly it is HELLA inconveniently located (ie on the Upper East Side) and everything there (like drinks and presumably the food, too) is rly expensive and not very good = gonna have to do better than that to justify the sign-up and dues.

i can see these types of private club spaces becoming more like co-working spaces that have popped up in recent years. or these co-working spaces becoming a bit more like private club spaces. whatever way it goes, i'm into that as an extension of my livingroom/office more than i'm into going to do work or have meetings in cafes or bars.

i was also thinking about how certain hotel lobbies are semi-public spaces, where people meet and hang out or pass time but don't necessarily consume goods or services (because you don't have to be staying in the fancy hotel to take advantage of its spacious lobby area, as long as you look like you belong there)

Ian Schrager (of Studio 54, boutique hotels, etc.) is definitely moving toward that idea of shared space with his new hotels.

Related to all this is the idea that arts orgs like theaters, symphonies, etc., are moving more toward a model of membership and belonging versus the subscription model of thinking of something three times a year.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/4696068135_865c20601a.jpg

http://www.the-craftycafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Chicago-Craft-Social-Harem-Room-at-Catalyst-Ranch.jpg

we had a "social club" locally that had a reasonable amount of space for art shows, dramatic productions, and classes in evening/weekends. also, a bar space. unfortunately, they were kind of getting cheap rent while renovations were going on in the neighborhood and haven't really found comparable space elsewhere. also, through friends I heard a lot about their not-so-great management style and coordination.

maybe with the right people, it could have worked, but it's kind of not a thing right now in that they're borrowing space

hotel lobbies are a good one. they're also a place where you can use the bathroom without buying something - that has a pretty high correlation with 'semi-public space'.

Has any weary traveler ever quickly run into a fast-food restaurant that wasn't a McDonalds to use the restroom?

I mean a sorta funny but kinda serious side of this is like 'what businesses am I looking for when I gotta pee' - starbucks, McDonalds, chain bookstores, hotel lobbies. we don't have easily accessible public bathrooms in many places that could really use them and these semi-public places fill that role.

OTM re bathrooms. I was just thinking, I don't need a social club to be around people, but if we're talking about how far we have to live from city centers in order to afford the cost of housing, what would be REALLY useful to me in a central area is a place to a) NAP and b) SHOWER and re-do my hair without going all the way home.

Here's how this goes from seeming like a stuffing-wingback-chair idea to a physical manifestation of something like, yes, ILX:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-0728-art-post-family-20110728,0,6700770.story

xpost - Nap-and-shower club--like the Moscow bathhouses of yore--is a great iea.

I just got done reading this 800-page book about Jim Wright and man, I wish my job had a "cloakroom".

i would pay $30-45 a month for a club such as this, with places to meet and to rest and, srsly, secure bike parking downtown
xp
see, the finer things do matter

fuck hanging yr coat off yr office chair imo

I've heard of people using their gym membership pretty much like this

still I'm not sure I buy that clubs/gyms/etc really can fill the same need here. they're a social filter in a way that starbucks and chain bookstores aren't - you are considerably less anonymous in a gym than you are in a borders. and I think the anonymous factor matters.

I like that Laurel's nap/shower club could basically be designed like a brothel without the prostitutes: small rooms, showers, and then a parlor with a Scott Joplin type dude playing an upright piano and maybe today's NY Times.

then you could add some prostitutes and it'd be perfect

lol iatee, stfu

I don't even need the room to be mine, it can be a room that's used in rotation, ditto the showers. Rooms should have, let's say at a minimum, linen services, I guess...not that I need a clean pillowcase and total sheet-change for a 20-minute nap, but I'm kind of at a loss how to separate napping from potential assignations, like on the larger operational level. Maybe along with the towels in the shower, you can pick up like a double flat sheet that you can fold any way you like for your napping surface?

some opium would be nice too

Sounds like a hostel?

I think a hotel could pick up these duties with the right financial agreement. say, you get 100 people willing to pay $40 a month for the option to use a few of the rooms for a few hours a week (and they promise it has nothing to do w/ prostitutes). the prob would be that the demand time for the rooms would probably have a lot of overlap.

a non-criminal safe house basically

Time-share hotel.

iatee if you're gonna post these concepts at least offer us a free lunch to read em

FUCKIN PP

a club for people who don't want to belong to any club that would accept them as a member

bub club

the more I thunk about it the more I realize that hotel arrangement would inevitably be used for sex

how would we prevent that

I meant to type think but thunk works

iatee before you think about semi-public spaces I think you should ask yourself what the purpose of life is

I think you should ask yourself what the purpose of life is

so we're back to church again now?

well I think he is proposing a sex church

roman baths

Samuel delany had these things called "runs" in one of his books, tunnels in public parks set up for consensual sex between strangers

most cities have those, except instead of tunnels they're actually enclosed rooms complete with toilets and sinks

certain church elders can even be found to congregate there from time to time

a club for people who don't want to belong to any club that would accept them as a member

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Thursday, July 28, 2011 12:19 PM

<3

one of my favorite quotes

the prob would be that the demand time for the rooms would probably have a lot of overlap.

I think the thing would be to have a certain number of rooms that people can rotate through in order to have more quiet/privacy, but at peak times like fri/sat nights and etc, people will overflow into sitting rooms with really squishy chairs and couches, but w the understanding that you can nap in them. Like, have a whole room where quiet is enforced and it's understood that peeple will be sleeping in whatever seating they can wrangle.

So basically we ARE back to the old-fashioned social club, but trying to keep services at a basic level so that costs don't get out of hand. We need the old London idea done in a modern Tokyo way.

yeah in san diego i think it is the public restrooms along the 6th street side of balboa park ... there is a mile or two of sidewalk dotted with restroom buildings and you see a lot of cruising on warm nights

my two (very hirsute) uncles tell me funny stories about arriving in san diego from iran in 1979. i guess for exercise they would roller-skate around the park (shirtless of course). eventually they decided 6th st was the best route, except for all the funny looks they kept getting from people ... not rude looks, just sort of ... strange looks

the future of semi-public space in america

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqRPOEa3P44

imagine a human face, banging on a door, forever

The future of semi-public sex in america

Wow that is actually really really RELEVANT even though that man is clearly unsane. "WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT to exclude the population? We are the Toronto PUBLIC, we want to SHOP! It is a public place, we want to get into the center."

Like when the center of public life actually kind of is shopping or at least commercial spaces, access IS an issue, a huge one!

otoh I would also lock my door if I saw that guy coming over.

the end of that is p great

yeah it's interesting how relevant that is! xps

being able to buy shit is the only public good left

I was hoping that youtube clip would end with somebody opening the other set of doors and just strolling in

its sorta lol that theres a large public square like across the street from where that guy is standing

i cannot stop laughing

I have tears rolling down my face right now

WHY ARE YOU PUTTING PEOPLE THROUGH THIS!?

english is not a language made for shouting

I have never been to toronto so idk the vibe of that particular area, but if anything I could see the public square across the street contributing to his idea that the shopping mall is a public space

xps

but he wants to SHOP. which sort of by definition is not something that ever happens in a public space.

yeah but we're in the semi-public space era

even public-public spaces like parks have shit you can buy

'era' maybe the wrong word

really? that's something I was going to mention earlier that's a bonus for semi-public spaces over truly public spaces. I often find myself in a public place and wish that I could buy something. Like being at the park and wishing I could get a nice lunch without leaving, or being at an elementary school event and needing a stiff drink.

and I'm struggling to think of any parks around here that have anything for sale, although I guess a lot of national parks that are big tourist destinations have stuff like food and gift shops.

maybe you could... bring something to eat. like... maybe in a paper bag.

sounds like communism to me

we have a 24-hour dunkin donuts in my town so that's a rad semi-public space sorry y'all who don't have a 24-hour dunkin donuts, you're missing out

really? that's something I was going to mention earlier that's a bonus for semi-public spaces over truly public spaces. I often find myself in a public place and wish that I could buy something. Like being at the park and wishing I could get a nice lunch without leaving, or being at an elementary school event and needing a stiff drink.

I think it depends on the park, but most semi-big parks have some sort of place to get food. full-scale restaurants are pretty rare, but that's probably a good thing.

remember reading on ilx about small towns in america where everybody hangs out at the taco bell after 10 pm

I hope Americans watched that video from Canada and maybe realized just how special our freedoms are.

who wants to go to the wal-mart parking lot and do poppers

I remember reading about people who play games in walmart

One of my best friends said that when he was a kid, he and his pals would go to the Wal-Mart up the street and play hide-n-seek.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB110911598024661430-H9jfYNklaF4oJ2sZ32IaqiAm5.html

mebbe someone can find this cached

People used to hang out in the Meijers when I was in high school. I did it a couple of times -- it was the only 24-hr place and there was a thrill to just being anywhere at that hour.

How about Wal-Mart's open arms policy toward letting campers and RVs park in its lots for free? (Putting some camps out of business.)

okay found it lol at the site

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/archive/index.php/t-63461.html

anyone ever hung out in one of the front rooms of a ca medical marijuana dispensary?

the future of semi-public space in america [Started by iatee in July 2011, last updated 1 minute ago by iatee on I Love Everything] 420 new answers

i went inside one once and they had a few sofas, which were occupied.

Ice-cream parlor in Havana park:
http://eatingtheworld.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/coppelia.jpg?w=500&h=333

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/153/360541165_70f845d237.jpg

and people say communism doesn't work

Did anyone else ever have their parents drop them off at the mall as an early teen? It hardly ever was a thing I did, but it's kind of a cultural institution in 80s movies

― mh, Wednesday, July 27, 2011 3:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

one or two times but when I was 5-8 my parents would often drop me off at a toys r us or the toys section of a k-mart for half an hour to an hour while they did their shopping elsewhere

My folks were running a community newspaper, so I was definitely left off at the mall for hours at a time. As someone said above, Spencer's Gifts and Aladdin's Castle, that whole thing.

Laurie Anderson, "Private Property" (1981)

William F. Buckley, Jr., Mr. Private Property, planned to give a little talk, a political speech, in a small town in Illinois. His advance men discovered that the center of town had disappeared, and that all the commercial action was out at the mall. When Buckley arrived at the mall, he set up his microphone near a little fountain and began to hand out leaflets and autograph copies of his latest book. Just as a small crowd of shoppers gathered, the owners of the mall ran out and said: Excuse us. This is private property, we’re afraid you’ll have to leave ...

haaaa

That ice cream parlor is amazing.

dispensary waiting rooms are not really a place I like to linger

Did anyone else ever have their parents drop them off at the mall as an early teen?

at that age the mall was pretty much all there was for me to do on weekends. that and the movies.

dispensary waiting rooms vary widely from spot to spot but in my town it would be like hanging out at a pharmacy or a doctors office

mine's like a doctor's office waiting area, but the kind of doctor's office that's decorated mostly in black and where you have to go through a security cage and metal detector to get in.

you should switch spots

i had a dream last night inspired by this thread. i was staying in this luxury residence hotel owned by walmart, and i needed to buy orange juice, and the hotel had stores on every floor, but they had the exact same selection of orange juice in every store, and none of it was what i wanted.

I think you had a futuristic vision of manhattan in 2050

you should switch spots

yeah. unfortunately they're the closest and cheapest place with the best selection. I'd rather deal with the crazy security since they and a bunch of other places in the area were robbed at gunpoint a couple years back.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/business/video-stores-reinvented-by-necessity.html?src=recg

my apartment's wifi has been spotty lately and there is a large mcdonalds very close to me. all I consume is coffee and $1 sundaes - it's basically serving as a starbucks with 5x the seats. what's interesting is how many other people I see here doing the same thing. lots of people with laptops for 5 hours at a time, many of them bring in outside food, nobody cares. I'd rather be at a cafe, and I'm sure they would too - but what kinda cafe is open at 1 am, doesn't care if you don't spend money, doesn't care if you're there all day?

whole foods is kinda awesome if u dont mind how expensive it all is

Wouldn't you rather pay a few bucks to fix your apartment's wifi than sit in a McDonald's for 5 hours? I would pay $50 per 5 hour session to be at home, and not there.

I like semi-public spaces! it's not like I'm there every night. also...I steal my wifi from a mysterious neighbor so I can't fix it when it occasionally goes down.

yeah, hanging out in mcdonalds for wifi is my idea of hell but then I went and hung out at the Grove tonight so who am I to judge? Also I felt slightly bad for a split second about that Vidiots article since I used to be a member and haven't been there in about a decade. But really, fuck video stores.

Since we already have Johnny Rockets, In & Out, and Sonic, doing the whole 50s thing, I really think one of the fast food chains should do a really gross '70s revival look. I would probably enjoy McDonalds if it was all faux photo-printed wood grain and garish red and yellow plastic seats. I think the first company to pick up on this would be really successful with it, but I'm sure it's never going to happen. Jack In the Box would be the ideal candidate.

I would hang out here for free wifi

http://www.modernsandiego.com/images/JIBMark2Williams.jpg

i think one of the really disarming things about using computers, sometimes at least, is the fact that you pretty successfully transfer your brain into the screen, & confine your attention to the parameters of the display. i am sitting on my bed, but sometimes i think i could be sitting on a pile of garbage & not notice; it's a very different way of occupying a space. so i can see how the environment part of 'where i get my wifi' is pretty perfunctory and not as critical as some other factors. isn't there some part in a murakami novel where a character wants to read & so ends up in taco bell at 1am bc it's the only place that opens past 10?, is a place she can just sit and read without any sensory intrusiveness? (i can't quite start to address the inevitable errors here or start googling taco bell japan, but this is how i remember it and i think it's something along those lines).

i think picking your cafe can be a weird thing anyway. i definitely had a shift when i was a little younger from automatically going to those kinda 'nice cafe' places that are neatly done & have a picture you like on the wall & have quirky bathroom decoration & play cute modern music, to going to places that are slightly less like an insular reaffirmation of your life choices. can see the virtues of being in a corner of mcdonald's dor a while in that respect.

insured quality hamburgers.

didn't jack in the box try a weird sorta high-end street-style variation restaurant, called JB X or something? my friend went in san diego iirc, i don't know to what extent it was a kitschy thing but i think it had gone for a v particular & appealing 'youth' environment.

I've heard that some cafes are cutting down on the number of power outlets available, so that when your battery runs down you have to go. gets rid of all those stupid mac people, who can't change batteries.

i think one of the really disarming things about using computers, sometimes at least, is the fact that you pretty successfully transfer your brain into the screen, & confine your attention to the parameters of the display. i am sitting on my bed, but sometimes i think i could be sitting on a pile of garbage & not notice; it's a very different way of occupying a space. so i can see how the environment part of 'where i get my wifi' is pretty perfunctory and not as critical as some other factors

I think this is missing the point - I like going to neu-mcdonald's for this! it's not just for the wifi. you see interesting things. people are around, even late at night.

oh sure, & that was my (intended) second point, that it can be as socially vivid to go to mcdonald's, or a department store cafe, as it is going somewhere that you might ordinarily drift towards to hang out or whatever. i just meant that using your computer somewhere is a weird lens through which to assess a place, for me, as you're more internal and concentrated than you might be doing other things, imo.

yeah that's a good point

didn't jack in the box try a weird sorta high-end street-style variation restaurant, called JB X or something? my friend went in san diego iirc

Yeah, I can't remember if there were more than one of these, but one actually still exists - although it is just called Jack in the Box again. It has a kind of 'industrial' design inside.

think my favourite thing about hearing about that was that it somehow framed fast food purchases in like STREET STYLE & vernacular, at least the way i heard it, & that also it was super expensive.

http://thenewinquiry.com/post/10556197667/obituary-borders-books-and-music

It's sort of becoming like anyone who gathers with others in public to do anything other than consume or produce is a kook, nuisance or criminal.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/09/corporate_landlord_losing_pati.html

With the Occupy Wall Street protests going into their ninth day, some tension is building, not just among protesters and police, but between landlord and tenant. Brookfield Office Properties Inc., a corporate firm that usually works with banks like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, owns Zuccotti Park, which has served as home base for the indefinite demonstration. Although it seems a bit counterintuitive, The Wall Street Journal reports, "Brookfield would rather have the protesters removed, but the New York Police Department has urged the firm to let them stay." Privately owned public spaces are a "legal gray area," but the landlord is making moves to end their unwitting participation in the protest:

which is to say - there is not a large public space close to wall street and that's actually having an effect on the current protest movement. downtown manhattan is an old and densely developed area - there aren't any large public parks around wall street because the streetscape predates large public parks. but were broadway shut down to traffic as it is in much of midtown, it would be a natural gathering spot, one that's even closer to wall street. there are plenty of other reasons to make broadway pedestrian-only, but in a world where it already were, the protest movement would have a lot more flexibility than it currently does.

People can't even protest private business for the lack of public space? Fuck em, go on to "private space" and risk the illegality.

I say this, but I am not there.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204831304576593371443552888.html

The park is one of many in the city created by developers to get zoning incentives—generally the ability to build taller buildings.

that's the case for a lot of bleak plaza-type areas in manhattan. but I think it's important to highlight - the creation of this particular public-private space came out of a deal they made w/ the public. are going to chop off a few stories from their skyscraper nearby as they shift this park from mostly-public to slightly-public?

still - there are lots of public spaces in manhattan. wall street was picked for symbolic reasons, but I wonder if 2011 era times square wouldn't have been the best choice. there's plenty of public-public space, the crowds would look magnified and it'd be harder for the press to ignore. it's not 'wall street' but neither is wall street.

what about union sq

has to get pretty enormous to 'look big' in union square. + 'protest in union square' sorta loses something in being a cliche. it's also not going to disrupt people in the same way that a large protest in midtown would. if (when?) you had thousands of people showing up every day, union square's prob the best location.

IIRC there's caselaw saying that a private owner can't repress speech when the privately owned space or building is serving a goverment-like function, but I don't know if this sort of incentivized private park has been tested. I think it came up in the past more with stuff like company towns.

I mean "can't repress speech" -- I'm sort of simplifying it, but some level of first amendment protection applies.

that's interesting

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/people-power-and-public-spaces

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2011/09/site-wall-street-protest-public-private-conundrum/219/

I'm assuming the reason the police are pressuring Brookfield to let the protestors stay is because if they get booted out, it'll be much more of a hassle for the cops, and the protest is liable to get a good deal more unpredictable

can revolutions happen in the suburbs y/n

now that 'occupy x' is happening in a lot of places and the idea of a centralized public space is actually directly relevant to a (possible) political movement

gf lives in a small old college town w/ a great large public square and they're planning the occupy movement there. it's perfect for it, and it's going to be quite visible and could potentially last a while. otoh places that lack that kind of public space are going to have difficulties.

and 'centralized public space directly relevant to political movement' is obv nothing new. but can the slow death of public space be related to problems w/ participatory democracy?

there's definitely a class aspect to it...you generally do not see upper-middle class people just hanging out in the public library.

I'd like to get back to this, if I may. Because I definitely do not see the poor and homeless hanging out in the large downtown public library, either, and I have to assume it is because they are very much discouraged from going inside. People that no one would have any reason to kick off a public sidewalk or out of a public park are, by one vague method or another, not really allowed inside a public building. I don't understand how this happens -- whether by statute or tacit social agreement.

Or harassment.

I think it might depend on the library, my hometown's downtown library was homeless people central. esp the bathroom.

Kenan, homeless or otherwise derelict people frequent the bathrooms in the main library. They bathe in the sinks and occupy the stalls for long periods. Presumably changing clothes or just resting in a warm place.

Kenan, homeless or otherwise derelict people frequent the bathrooms in the main library.

Read that at first in a completely different context than what I think you inteneded.

Ha!

It may also be that the Harold Washington Library is so badly laid out and the signage so unclear, homeless people have trouble finding the bathrooms. Maybe it is more common in the winter -- I can see that.

or people become homeless just looking for the bathrooms, gilliamesque vagrants

ha

HA! You don't know how funny that is. This library is seriously fucked. Largest in the nation by square footage, and not a bit of it makes any logical sense.

I think it was very deliberately designed that way opening in downtown Chicago before it was all cleaned up.

Correction, largest in the WORLD, apparently. 756,640 square feet.

For its size, interesting that there isn't a main high-ceiling'd reading room, in the tradition of grand libraries.

There is the Winter Garden on the 9th floor, with its trees and its skylights and its blue tint that is more unpleasant than any florescent bulb and bound to baffle the auto-white balance of any camera (so I have found). But it's always empty, perhaps because it's so damn hard to get two. Three flights of escalators, no signs telling you where it is, and then up to nine, when ten is the top button on the elevator -- everything about getting there is difficult, unless you already know where it is. Is a failure of a public space by any measure.

(Hard to get TO, not to get two. Why do I type homonyms sometimes?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/sunday-review/wall-street-protest-shows-power-of-place.html

and another

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/opinion/zuccotti-park-and-the-private-plaza-problem.html

UK experience: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/nov/13/london-river-park-floating-public-space

the entire city's public-private space come the olympics

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/11/starbucks-bathrooms-new-york.html

So, it's not illegal in NYC to have a place that serves food and not have a public bathroom? It is in a lot of places.

That's been a minor culture shock about moving here. I find myself reminding my girlfriend to pee before we go out like a roadtrip dad.

iirc if you have more than a certain # of seats you have to have a bathroom, I forgot what that # is 17 or 19, around there

http://www.nyc.gov/apps/311/allServices.htm?requestType=service&levelOneId=B0AB8D90-078A-11DE-AC9C-EF5AFBC474DE&levelTwoId=B0AB8D90-078A-11DE-AC9C-EF5AFBC474DE-0&levelThreeId=B0AB8D90-078A-11DE-AC9C-EF5AFBC474DE-0-2&serviceName=Restaurant+Bathroom+Requirements&finalSubLevel=3&intentId=E9E66310-8137-11DE-8E9F-96DAE110FEB8

http://gothamist.com/2011/11/16/toilet_tragedy_starbucks_has_begun.php

false alarm

whew

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/business/barnes-noble-taking-on-amazon-in-the-fight-of-its-life.html

this could go in a lot of threads I guess

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/business/making-over-the-mall-in-rough-economic-times.html

I should go take pictures of the near-dead mall that I grew up near. Last I checked, there are two churches, an Animal Rescue League location, and one torn-down anchor store there.

I almost didn't need to read further the opening sentence - I work a block away from the Galleria. And yes, aside from weekday lunchtimes, the place is a ghost town. Ten years ago it had a Brentano's bookstore and a Gloria Jean's coffee place and an Eddie Bauer and other decent places to shop. Now it's a jewelry store, a physical therapy practice (seriously), a radio station . . . I don't even know what else is in there. It's so un-trafficked, the food court lost a McDonald's. You have to be in really bad shape to shut down a McDonald's.

oh yeah I think that's going to be the case 10x as often as a successful ~conversion into the 21st century~

I mean at a certain point we have to accept that large portions of the american built landscape will just have to rot away

Here in Costa Mesa the ghost one is Triangle Square -- moved to the area 20 years ago and it was all about a huge Niketown, a Virgin Megastore, etc. Pretty much the only things there now are a movie theater, a Yard House and a superclub type spot.

OK, I looked at a store listing and not only is one of their remaining anchors closing/closed (JC Penney), they count the attached Target store as an anchor (I always just thought of it as a Target that happened to be attached to the mall, idk) and there is a podiatrist in the mall.

Also, I have no idea what it is, but the mall has a tenant called "The Place of Victory." No commentary necessary.

The funny thing is that Cleveland has been making a somewhat successful effort to get young professionals to live downtown, just in time for all the shopping to go away so they have to go, if not into the suburbs to shop, at least a decent distance from the downtown area.

one counteracting force is online retail I think

which also has implications for 'the future of semi-public space'

First, the megastores squeezed out the small players. (Think of Tom Hanks’s Fox & Sons Books to Meg Ryan’s Shop Around the Corner in the 1998 comedy, “You’ve Got Mail”.)

thanks, never would have figured out what you were talking about nyt w/o a reference to a 14 year old movie i've never seen.

http://interacc.typepad.com/.a/6a01053596fb28970c014e5f2ef340970c-250wi

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Mises-Economics/2012/0208/The-decline-of-the-shopping-mall?

While the decline of the shopping mall might ostensibly sound positive, I imagine it's partly due to things that are probably even worse for "the future of semi-public space" in America than malls, namely (1) one-stop superstores like Wal-Mart and Target, which don't even have the degree of leisurely common space that a mall has, and (2) internet shopping.

The result seems to be that we're more able than ever to avoid unplanned or unwanted interaction with other people, and perversely, it seems like the more used to this distance from one another people get, the more they crave it or at least the harder it becomes for them to cope with interraction. cf. ILX

yup I agree

I do have to say, the upside of internet shopping and big box stores is that they eventually leave people frustrated and we end up with shopping areas that are not malls but have more small stores, or communities end up investing in public spaces that aren't commerce-oriented

The result seems to be that we're more able than ever to avoid unplanned or unwanted interaction with other people, and perversely, it seems like the more used to this distance from one another people get, the more they crave it or at least the harder it becomes for them to cope with interraction.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the explosion of interractive, social art. Relational aesthetics; etc. But also projects that are centered around moving through public spaces and reimagining semi-public spaces and border spaces.

small stores have to compete w/ the internet too

and while more communities are getting the right idea w/r/t public space, those projects really aren't going to make up for the disappearance of the historic downtown - or even the mall.

xp

And small stores always face difficulty competing economically and can only compete by offering *something more* to people who are willing and able to spend more than the lowest/cheapest price they can get something.

BTW firming up internet sales tax would help this situation -- there's really no reason for an internet sale to go untaxed nowadays.

that's definitely true, tho in the long-term internet retail is prob gonna win most of the battles, even w/o a price advantage

that said there is still commerce that requires public space - anything service based (restaurants, barbers, beauty salons, etc.) or anything that's selling the idea of public space (bars, cafes)

a lot of mid-sized cities are doing their public space projects in the historical downtown areas, though!

I think the winners are boutique-style shops or services like the aforementioned restaurants/bars/entertainment/local crafts/salons

when I said 'the historic downtown' I meant it more as a concept than a place.

the one thing that seems to not stick in some of these reworked downtown area is groceries, which is odd. The few that try seem to be more boutique grocery, like they assume downtown residents won't use them as their primary store. Downtowns where people still have to drive 5 - 10 minutes to get to a full grocery store

oh, as in "the way downtown used to be", gotcha

the reworked downtown areas still have low population density and not very many people going car-free, which makes it hard for a medium sized downtown grocery store to compete.

Some of these things might also be questions of cultural assumptions and the way we get accustomed to shopping (which can all be changed of couse), e.g. people are used to the idea of buying groceries for a whole week, which means loading up a car. But if you live walking distance to smaller groceries you can shop more frequently and fresher.

I actually think a trendy redesign of the grandma cart could work wonders for this phenomenon.

density is prob more essential than cultural assumptions. not that they don't matter, but you need enough people close together before the economics of a big walkable grocery store becomes practical, and not very many places have it.

wonder how other cultural trends play into the community effect of public space. say, you have a public space that works on paper, if people are drawn to their inner world via technology (playing on smart phones or texting friends while in that space), if that would null the face-to-face community aspect of that space.

In a lot of cities, hardly anyone lives in those "revitalized" downtowns, though? Or maybe not yet. I feel anecdatally like the city usually has to pay for a reconstruction/reuse plan for the downtown and then wait for developers and residential demand to come along after? So a grocery store would have to have all those elements in place first, and then try to make it.

xxp

Another thing would be convincing people to walk longer distances to shop, which carts would help. So would continuing to improve the aesthetics and walkability of downtowns.

Sort of a tangent but I remember that when I lived in Jersey (where I did not grow up) and first got in a car, friends once complained that I didn't take the parking space closest to whatever fast food place we were stopping at. I thought this was strange -- the difference in distances seemed so miniscule that it didn't matter. But that's the mentality that regular car travel engenders I think.

wonder how other cultural trends play into the community effect of public space. say, you have a public space that works on paper, if people are drawn to their inner world via technology (playing on smart phones or texting friends while in that space), if that would null the face-to-face community aspect of that space.

I think this misses the point a bit - people like being in public spaces even if they're in their own world. this is why starbucks is packed even tho everyone has the internet at home and a coffee machine.

like, the way I see it, a lot of 21st century tech is good for public spaces. an ipad or a phone gives someone 'an excuse' for being alone in public.

when we lived in a suburb of Paris recently we lived right across the street from a big box hypermarche & it was terrific; we didn't have a car obviously but we could walk to the store every day using our cart to bring back what we needed. We had a pretty small fridge but w/e, didn't need it. Life was scaled to daily shopping.

BUT if we hadn't lived so close to the store, I can see that it would have sucked. Lots lots lots of people drove---it had a huge parking lot. & people in line were usually very stressed out, esp. if you went from 4pm-8pm when they'd presumably just gotten back after a long day of work; the lines were awfully long too.

but this suburb was pretty dense, with population density about 25,000 / square mile, more than Queens, more than SF, more than Vienna, more than Helsinki, etc.

so I dunno: is the only solution to have density like inner ring Paris or Manhattan?

xp to grocery store discussion

so I dunno: is the only solution to have density like inner ring Paris or Manhattan?

yes

queens density very very skewed fwiw

I think this misses the point a bit - people like being in public spaces even if they're in their own world. this is why starbucks is packed even tho everyone has the internet at home and a coffee machine.

yeah, I can see that. just went off on an assumption that ... if you're in a public area in commerce you're not necessarily a captive audience to the community when you have constant access to your inner social circle, and so don't have any particular need to go outside of that. much like the effect of living in a detached suburban home or driving instead of taking public transportation... you can stay in your "community bubble" with your smartphone.

but maybe that's outside of what actually happens.

Queens seems like a weird mix of urban and suburban. I was just at Queens Center for the first time and it seemed kind of nightmarish and absolutely the worst of both worlds -- high density area with lots of ugly, barrack-style apartment buildings, more than enough density to support thriving town centers but instead just this awful complex of malls and parking garages stacked on top of each other.

Not that that represents all of Queens, obv

yeah it is, that's why I find it so interesting (both the borough and the queens center). the real problem is queens boulveard past-sunnyside, which is basically a highway. queens density (unsurprisingly) reflects the subway map. much of western queens is gonna be inner ring paris levels, but the eastern suburban parts are sorta just bleak dense suburbia.

this mostly just matters for 'you do not need to look like manhattan to have walkable grocery stores'

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1990353

fuck shopping malls

people like being in public spaces even if they're in their own world

tbh I think this is how I prefer to be in public spaces

iatee: awesome.

i remember in my intro econ course when some smug TA drew a supply demand curve showing how rent control _must_ restrict the supply of housing. obviously we just need to do away with rent control!

in an ideal world I don't think we'd really need rent control / better way to help people is for the gov't to give them money for rent, but libertarians who make a big deal about it instead of zoning, mand parking, highways are showing their cards (they just hate poor ppl)

well yeah, but people NEED parking! oh wait, people need a place to live? well they can live wherever, I guess

next you'll be telling me people need food, like this food stamp president we have. just don't take away my parking spaces, those are a god-given right

better way to help people is for the gov't to give them money for rent

Without rent control or designated housing, this leads to increased segregation.

no not if you just give them money

That's what section 8 vouchers are though. Rent control isn't very common anymore.

landlords can opt out tho

and in any case it's prob better and cheaper to just give people cash

I'm enough of a paternalist to think it's better for the govt not to just hand out cash

yeah that paternalist thinking is p stupid, if people are gonna buy drugs or whatever they still get to do it w/ their incomes that they're now not spending on rent.

well no, the fear is that ppl are still being homeless and just buying more drugs

although you could look at it as the problem that solves itself, I guess; if enough money is diverted to more drugs, the person using them will kill themselves faster and get off the gov't handout that way

tbf, taking drugs sometimes makes homelessness seem less bad

legalize drugs

or the gov't could legalize and control the sale of drugs xp

voila

there's prob less resistence to that than fixing our fucked up zoning or giving poor people money w/o shaming them, so who knows

right, paternalist attitude is let's make sure that these people (and, in many cases, their children) get homes even though they are buying drugs or whatever else instead of spending the money on rent (xp)

and in any case it's prob better and cheaper to just give people cash

― iatee, Wednesday, February 8, 2012 3:39 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's cheaper and more efficient to just give people cash. But if you have a fixed ammount cash to spend in an open market, you get priced out of your neighborhood when it gentrifies. We are living in a period of increasing economic segregation

I think iatee's argument is more sympathetic if you frame it as "the government should have a safety net that guarantees even the most destitute enough money to reach a minimum standard of living" with the caveat being that if they then choose to spend that money in unwise ways, that's their prerogative

paternalist attitude is 'if we give poor people money they will all forget to look for apartments because they will all be homeless and doing drugs' xp

um, no

It's cheaper and more efficient to just give people cash. But if you have a fixed ammount cash to spend in an open market, you get priced out of your neighborhood when it gentrifies. We are living in a period of increasing economic segregation

gentrification only exists because we have a v. limited amount of nice urban area to begin w/. there's nothing wrong w/ someone being priced out of something they can't afford, it just should be suburbia.

or the gov't could legalize and control the sale of drugs

so is the idea that the gov't would outlaw the sale of drugs to homeless ppl, because you seem to be eliding two issues that should really be considered separately (esp. considering that a good chunk of the homeless problem is also tied to the deplorable state of mental health services in this country along with the costs of the medication/therapy necessary to deal with those issues)

thank you reagan

they shouldn't be considered separately if we're acting worried about all the drug users and crazy people who we're gonna be giving $ to

our big solution for anyone who falls through the cracks is jail, mostly

a: those are also gov't created problems w/ gov't solutions xp

But if the rich increasingly want to live in cities, then it's going to be cities that people are priced out of

so let's make it not-illegal to build more dense urban neighborhoods

Totally agree with that

gentrifiction is a problem *because* of that. neighborhoods change, I don't think anybody has a god-given right to live anywhere, but it is pretty tragic that we're pricing poor people out of the places they can live without cars

xp disagree, each house should have enough space built in to park three cars and a boat

gentrifiction is a problem *because* of that. neighborhoods change, I don't think anybody has a god-given right to live anywhere, but it is pretty tragic that we're pricing poor people out of the places they can live without cars

this is the problem Section 8 is attempting to solve...?

I'm not against section 8? I said I think it's better than rent control and would be even better if it were just cash.

fwiw I remember the person showing us our building mentioning they didn't take section 8, I forgot what the context was (not "do you take section 8? unfortunately) but yeah this is a middle class apt building in queens.

I just want to quote Wikipedia here:

In addition, landlords, though required to meet fair housing laws, are not required to participate in the Section 8 program. As a result, some landlords will not accept a Section 8 tenant. This can be attributed to such factors as:

not wanting the government involved in their business, such as having a full inspection of their premises by government workers for HUD's Housing Quality Standards (HQS) and the possible remediations required[14]
fear that a Section 8 tenant or their children will not properly maintain the premises
a desire to charge a rent for the unit above FMR
unwillingness to initiate judicial action for eviction of a tenant (HUD requires that Section 8 tenants can only be evicted by judicial action, even where state law allows other procedures)
a desire to not inflict the social pathologies perceived to be associated with section 8 tenants, such as crime, vandalism, drug use, drug dealing and littering on the surrounding community[citation needed]

(IOW, congrats, you have a racist landlord)

fwiw I think they're going out of business, or at least they almost did

but yeah things like this or food stamps just take money and make it less useful money

can someone gimme a quick rundown on what section 8 is, sounds like it could be a lot like what i do

Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. § 1437f), often simply known as Section 8, as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of approximately 3.1 million low-income households. It operates through several programs, the largest of which, the Housing Choice Voucher program, pays a large portion of the rents and utilities of about 2.1 million households. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development manages the Section 8 programs.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_%28housing%29 <-- more detail

But not without some fairly good reasons

No one is saying "all poor people are drug addicts" or "most poor people have no idea how to spend money," but the fact is that there are significant numbers of poor people who do in fact neglect their own and/or their kids basic needs due to drugs, mental health issues or w/e -- I don't want to even speculate further on the causes but it is a very real phenomenon. As long as the govt takes those kinds of things as their concern at all, particularly when it comes to kids, there is a fairly good reason to hand out food stamps or vouchers over cash. Maybe making Section 8 mandatory or doing more to incentivize taking the vouchers is a better idea, but there are drawbacks to cash.

there are drawbacks to everything; often picking a course of action really entail picking which set of drawbacks you can best live with

I could be making millions off of hot stock tips instead of posting to ILX

xpost obv, what I mean is I think the drawbacks to pure cash outweigh the benefits, which I guess are the flexibility and the lower shame factor.

thks, section 8 actually sounds more like the system we're replacing, good luck usa

I don't understand why shaming poor people is the issue? shouldn't the issue be: is it moral for citizens of an affluent country to let poor people starve or freeze?

also don't really get why non-religious people care about poor people, except as wasted units of production & consumption; but this is just my usual failure to understand why non-religious people cling to Judeo-Christian ethics.

it's america, if you're poor you messed up somehow, obviously

^^ national motto

also don't really get why non-religious people care about poor people, except as wasted units of production & consumption; but this is just my usual failure to understand why non-religious people cling to Judeo-Christian ethics.

Is this for real?

even I don't know the answer to that question

it's true, judeo-christian ethics are the only reason that exists as to why we should care about other people

iirc it's so they don't rob you

I'm just trolling myself, never mind me

its an interesting qn, at least to me or at least to me and phrased slightly differently

yeah I should drop the specifically Western part but o/w I do care about that question, i.e. Nietzsche was right

I don't think nietzsche was an economist

No one is saying "all poor people are drug addicts" or "most poor people have no idea how to spend money," but the fact is that there are significant numbers of poor people who do in fact neglect their own and/or their kids basic needs due to drugs, mental health issues or w/e -- I don't want to even speculate further on the causes but it is a very real phenomenon.

right, which is why we need drastic policy changes to deal w/ it. food stamps and section 8 don't guarantee that mentally ill people and drug addicts are treated by doctors etc. etc... welfare programs shouldn't be the method through which we solve those problems. gov't welfare should be the method through which we solve the problem of poverty. and a cheaper, less bureaucratic, more efficient way to fight poverty is to...give people money. but even american left-wing people have sorta an ingrained knee-jerk reaction to the concept.

giving ppl money usually just makes the items everyone wants more expensive, partic with reference to rent assistance

well that's true for every object in the world and it's not always a bad thing. again I don't think there's anything wrong w/ people being priced out of certain neighborhoods, I think there's something wrong w/ the fact that what those neighborhoods offer (reliably public transit, density, etc.) are v. limited due to generations of poor policy-making.

reliable*

that's to say if giving poor people in brooklyn more money helps raise rents in brooklyn, there's nothing wrong w/ that in itself, it just highlights the need for building more brooklyns + makes it more profitable to do so

a cheaper, less bureaucratic, more efficient way to fight poverty is to...give people money.

That works for a lot of things, which is why I support EITC as one example of an effective, efficient way to give people money.

But the market isn't always the most effective way to guarantee services, especially to lower income people. Health services, mental health services, daycare, housing--all of these services are challenges for poor people, and in many cases they're becoming more out of reach for middle income people as well, as they become more expensive and unevenly distributed.

I don't think there's anything wrong w/ people being priced out of certain neighborhoods, I think there's something wrong w/ the fact that what those neighborhoods offer (reliably public transit, density, etc.) are v. limited due to generations of poor policy-making.

Rent control has a lot of drawbacks. Pretty much all economists agreed that rent ceilings reduced the amount of available rental space. Economists also pretty much universally agreed that rent control was actually bad for the lower and middle classes. In 1995 Boston deregulated. The positive effect: more rental spaces were created and landlords invested more in their properties and neighborhoods. The affluent flocked to the city.

The downside was that rent prices increased by 75% in Boston between 1995 and 1999. Deregulation meant that poor people were either spending most of their pay on rent, or they were moving out of the city. Middle class people also felt the squeeze. Fortunately, there is public transit so poor people can still bus into the city to pick up garbage and clean dishes and such.

again all of that is pretty meaningless compared to distorting effects of zoning + lack of investment in public transit

ie people were priced out of boston because there isn't very much boston because they legally prevent there from being very much boston

this may be 101 or w/e but it's never made any sense to me to consider something a universal right while allowing , for the most part, market control (am aware that states may be different wrt housing 'rights'). what you get with that attitude over here is inflated demand (social housing lists are far in excess of what they need to be ime), bloated rent support schemes, higher rents and boom/bust cycles in housing.

What little i know of the german (european in general?) housing model seems to make a lot more sense, stability-wise.

and, kind of tying in with iatee's wider point, i figure it's easier to plan infrastructural improvement such as he's discussing when you do what you can to take the heat out of the housing market and the periodical frenzy that investment & speculation brings

but food's also a universal right that's controlled by the market, which is why it gets subsidized in a similar manner. social housing was pretty poorly done basically everywhere in the 20th century, including much of europe (see: france) and I don't think there's any reason why the gov't would be *better* at building housing, ya know?

i'm not arguing for regulation of staple foods either, tbf, was trying to keep it to housing tbh

Maybe i'm arguing communism controlling a minimum standard of living, with the option of increasingly consumptive capitalism as wealth increases i dunno.

Govt housing, over here & these days, meets all minimum standards wrt energy efficiency, outside space, planning requirements, etc- which is a lot more than can be said for a high % (majority? maybe) of high-intensity developments built for profit.

and, tbf, social ~everything~ has been done pretty badly throughout p much all of human history, no?

damn, not arguing for *market* regulation of staple foods, either

I am currently in the 4th largest mall in he midwest. Eating salad.

I mean if high-intensity developments don't meet legal codes, there should be legal action. I don't think 'the gov't follows the laws, private industry doesn't' is a good argument for putting the gov't in charge of housing.

social ~everything~ is kinda a big category but I'd say social medicine has done a pretty good job?

i can't figure out do they cancel each other out selon iatee

as long as he walked to the mall and he is using his hands as the salad container and all the lettuce was grown within the mall I think he's okay