5 ms·

Maybe I'm biased, but I'm surprised this is considered new. I grew up in an American suburb. There was basically zero commons. Most places you go to socialize

• ivanbakel 9y ago
  It's strange in Europe, and especially in as dense a city as London, which has a lot of public engagement and interest in spaces. To quote the article: >it’s a very Atlanticist model, seen primarily in North America
  • maxerickson 9y ago
    In the US the semi public spaces will be concentrated in urban cores. Elsewhere real parks will dominate. Especially in terms of actual use. People might not even realize that some little set aside green space is semi public, whereas municipalities like to advertise their green spaces.
• humanrebar 9y ago
  The private commons I'm most concerned with are actually digital commons: sites like twitter, reddit, and facebook. They have and enforce speech codes and otherwise curate and filter the content. In this way, a park or two that you can't have a picnic in isn't all that alarming to me. Town squares used to be partially about places for bottom-up speech and marketing. In that world, silencing the riff-raff in squares had serious social consequences. These days, much of it seems digital.
  • kome 9y ago
    very very good point.
  • jancsika 9y ago
    That's a bit like saying you're less concerned about being waste-deep in a tarpit and more concerned about the prospect of your arms getting stuck. The analogy is especially apt because if you think of web/net commons actually replaces free physical assembly (rather than augmenting it), then you can be convinced to give up your freedom of web/net assembly when whatever next new digital shift comes along. (E.g., not terribly concerned about my arms stuck in the tarpit because my head is connected directly to the VR meshnet...) edit: clarification another edit: typo
• 0x4f3759df 9y ago
  That's why I celebrate the death of the mall. The creator of the first mall (Southdale in Edina, MN), Victor Gruen, renounced his work. https://qz.com/454214/the-father-of-the-american-shopping-mall-hated-cars-and-suburban-sprawl/ https://qz.com/454214/the-father-of-the-american-shopping-ma...
  • jhbadger 9y ago
    Although what seems to be replacing malls, at least where I am, aren't revitalized public shopping areas but rather "lifestyle centers" which are areas that look like traditional downtown shopping areas with blocks of connected stores along streets, but which are as privately owned as the enclosed malls were.
    • 0x4f3759df 9y ago
      Yeah, there are outlet malls near me (http://www.startribune.com/twin-cities-supporting-two-outlet-malls-just-fine/330492811/ http://www.startribune.com/twin-cities-supporting-two-outlet...), that resemble a traditional city in some ways, except the fact that there are no people living above the stores... so no multi-use vibrancy... just chain stores and food courts.
• vosper 9y ago
  The death of the public commons, and its replacement by privately owned pseudo-commons (just don't break any corporate or brand rules) is a major theme of Naomi Klein's seminal book, No Logo. I have't read it for a while, so I don't know how it holds up (more, rather than less, I would guess) but I enjoyed it both times. Here's another article from the Guardian, discussing No Logo. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/15/100-best-nonfiction-books-number-3-no-logo-naomi-klein-anti-corporate-capitalism-branding-brands https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/15/100-best-nonfi...
  • blacksmith_tb 9y ago
    It's a major theme in Mike Davis' _City of Quartz_ [1] which predates No Logo by a decade. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Quartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Quartz