I'm STILL banging on about this. For years there has been encroachment on "public space" by commercial entities. A very good example of this is the highly successful regeneration of the South Bank, consulted by Space Syntax, who advised on shops, bars and restaurants (or "magnets") placed within the space to draw people in.
It works - cardboard city is no more, now there's a thriving social place to get your cafe frappacino with an extra shot for £4 while going to look at something in the Hayward and then go and get pissed in the BFI bar. Brilliant. Let them eat cake, give 'em what they want and the masses want COAL-CHA with a latte.
So these little steps, these encroachments, keep happening, and they seem to offer us benefits. A relaxed cafe to get a drink when you are thirsty after sitting on a bench by the river. A convenient mobile phone shop when you upgrade your handset for the second time that day.
But you are left without something that is truely free - in terms of both liberty and price. The ability to be left alone seems crucial to me, I don't want someone marketing to me, AIMING, TARGETING me indescriminately. The city is a decision to engage in social life, or to deliberately disengage, and to remain anonymous, to observe and not be observed and this could be coming to an end.
No comments:
Post a Comment