This article has a great deep dive on how we have so few “free” or community-sourced places in the US that they often get used as a catch-all for any and all social problems we have. See: libraries as homeless shelters. From the article:
What’s happened is we’ve stigmatized our public spaces, because we’ve done so little to address core problems that we’ve turned them into spaces of last resort for people who need a hand. And as we do that, we send another message to affluent, middle-class Americans, and that is: If you want a gathering place, build your own in the private sector. So we have a lot of work to do.
That’s a great point – by making public places the only places you can exist while poor, you push all the homeless there and everyone else ends up avoiding it and going to places they have to spend money at. Enforced consumption.
Picnic in the park? Sorry, tent city there. Better go to a restaurant instead.
Baseball at the diamond? Needles and excrement, let’s go bowling instead.
Grab some books from the library? Someone’s smoking crack in the bathroom, I’ll just buy the book from a store. Or Amazon.
Ideally these public spaces would be for everyone, but more and more they’re repurposed for social services.
This article has a great deep dive on how we have so few “free” or community-sourced places in the US that they often get used as a catch-all for any and all social problems we have. See: libraries as homeless shelters. From the article:
That’s a great point – by making public places the only places you can exist while poor, you push all the homeless there and everyone else ends up avoiding it and going to places they have to spend money at. Enforced consumption.
Picnic in the park? Sorry, tent city there. Better go to a restaurant instead.
Baseball at the diamond? Needles and excrement, let’s go bowling instead.
Grab some books from the library? Someone’s smoking crack in the bathroom, I’ll just buy the book from a store. Or Amazon.
Ideally these public spaces would be for everyone, but more and more they’re repurposed for social services.
Obvious solution: stop making people homeless.
Everything is pay for use.