What are some places you can spend time where you're protected from the elements and it doesn't cost anything to be there?
What are some places you can spend time where you're protected from the elements and it doesn't cost anything to be there?
The classic example is libraries, but ideally I'm thinking of places you can have a conversation.
Interested in types of places ("libraries") or specific places. Growing up we would wander around the local grocery store which was open 24 hours.
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Third spaces. Capitalism doesn't like these as they don't generate a profit. So there aren't many left.
Libraries, parks, anything publicly owned and accessible.
There are some privately owned third spaces, like the inside of malls. But that's about it I think.
Capitalism didn’t kill third spaces, technology did. Niel Postman and Robert Putnam spent most of their lives writing about the creep of technology and how it destroys actual human society and its base-level interactions.
Car-dependent zoning did.
Why not both?
Because "capitalism ruined it" is a tired and lazy excuse. I'm more interested in actual causes.
I'd say it's not even capitalism but the rabid anti-tax people/movement. Third spaces like libraries and parks are paid for by tax money, and if people keep voting against raising taxes, well guess what. No more public spaces.