Public Space

There are several words and concepts that are very important to me, which I feel the need to give a definition for, before I go on using them all in tandem to develop other ideas. They’re all terms which mean slightly (or greatly) different things for different individuals, and so it’s necessary to state exactly what you mean before you use one of them. In this case, I want to talk about “public space” and what it means to me. It should be the least controversial of the terms I talk about but the boundaries of where it ends will still most likely be different than how someone else would describe them. So to illustrate what I mean by public space and why it is absolutely essential and special, I have written the following essay.

Only recently have I acquired the language (still lacking the writing) to scratch the surface of a thing I’ve felt/known for my entire life. And that is the nature of the “public space”, and the bliss found therein.

First let me depict a thing we’re all wading through like muck constantly: the private space. A few days ago, I entered a smoothie shop, a very corporately polished smoothie shop. And as I walked in, and collided with the perfectly sealed and air-conditioned atmosphere of the interior, I felt something else come over me: a deep feeling of unease. It was the middle of the day, during that awkward time when the desperation of a food service business is heightened and amplified to a level that is obvious to everyone.  Contributing was the bright pinks and oranges lathering every surface in the place. It came from the not-too-emotionally-stirring indie-alt-rock soundtrack playing loudly through some ceiling speakers. It came from the employees whose nervous smiles, eyes, and words probed me constantly for what I would be doing in upcoming seconds.

Overall the unease, the stress of existing in this space, came from the fact that this environment wanted from me. And if I did not give it what it wanted (((((((money)))))), then I was useless to it. I may as well be less than nothing if I couldn’t open up my wallet and pay up. I felt the pressure to be on.

“Can I help you with anything have you ever been here before well just let me know if I help you with anything we have low-fat healthy options with lots of sugar!!!”

We got the ^fuck^ out of ^there^ quick.

I’d heard the term “public space” before in architecture articles and leftist essays but in the days following this event, it hit home in a new way what it was; what is represents; why it matters. To dwell and relax and read or play or exercise or sit and think of absolutely nothing in a public space. To exist in a public space is bliss, because a public space is a physical area that requires nothing from you (money, maintenance, time, upkeep of any kind) to continue its functional existence, and most often gives you something of value despite asking nothing of you.

Even your home comes with its stresses and nagging needs. A home you must pay for, or pay rent for, or clean, or maintain in various ways. A public space needs none of these, and actually rewards you in a sense, making you think “it’s good that a couple cents of my tax dollars go to something good like this every year”, since it does require that much upkeep. But this upkeep is so indirect and unintrusive that you don’t actually feel it.

I realized that all those times as a child that I had visited the library and gone to “reading time” and gone to parks and played on jungle gyms and explored forests and biked on nature trails. Those experiences were all so beautiful because they were had in a region of space where I was actually free.

There is no better feeling than sitting in an obscured library aisle where you haven’t seen another human for hours, just reading a book that you found on accident whose binding art you judged it solely on. And you find you like the pages in the book as well. Existence makes sense in the context of this library aisle.

I think we all crave this public space without knowing it. Even being as well-read as I’ve been compared to most American kids, I never had the language to express it, until reading academic writing. It must be made more lexically available, as a lack of a descriptive language often inhibits thought itself, not to mention communication. We’re missing community art projects and music and picnics and people, and we don’t know it; Times and places of comfort and belonging where no one requires a return on capital investment. This belonging is incredibly important; many of us tribal animals get none of it in today’s world.

Consider scene kids. These broken individuals (not all but many) flock to malls because malls are filled with people, but they don’t get what they want, because malls aren’t really public spaces. They don’t find the belonging they desire there. Malls are demanding private spaces disguised as human meeting places. Don’t you think these scene kids would think/act/live differently if they weren’t in a dirty little foodcourt, pressured by the private space into buying cheap unhealthy food which further fucks with already turbulent tween hormones? I propose that what they really want is a public space, something that will make them feel like they’re wanted and not just grungy outliers of a “productive society”. They don’t get this from home. Home demands of the individual and their parents are usually awful. They don’t get it from school or work which both demand. So they gather in a place they know of with lots of humans and humans like them, but it doesn’t serve them well because the mall feeds on the tweens and the other types of people who shop at malls.

I think we all crave a relationship with our environment that is interdependent, not codependent. The private space is like a needy boy/girlfriend who hits us up with texts that we don’t want to answer anymore. They just need-need-need from us, and it’s exhausting to comply with that day after day. It’s unhealthy and unsustainable. We know this as far as human relationships go, but we must acknowledge this with our relationship to our environment.

We need more interdependent relationships in our lives, human and environmental where we grow independently of the other, but both of us feel warmth in taking part in the other’s growth. You have your own thing going, and it inspires me and builds me up, and I have my own thing going which you understand, and we enjoy our time when we’re together.

With the atomization and isolation that we all feel today, we need more public spaces. We need parks, and trains and buses and libraries and activities where we can interact with other humans; the internet is not enough. The internet will never have the warm element of a true public space, although at times it finds the freedom of the public space.

Paradoxically you can even find traces of the public space in private enterprises. Starbucks has learned to mimic the public space in its layout and practice of never asking someone sitting in one of their chairs “CAN I HELP YOU?”. In this sense, even businesses can profit from the concept, although that is a kind of false solution.

We must at least keep public space in mind. Think of it while you’re walking around tomorrow or whatever you do. Think of what it means to you to have a public space to simply exist in, and what kind of feelings and attitudes are born from these spaces.