Decorative Benches?

Who and what is public space for?

Last year, I wrote about a little dispute over public benches in a shopping center near my home, which raised complaints of disruptive behavior. I understand that, especially if the exact details were true (e.g. men catcalling women walking by, or drinking and being rowdy late at night). The benches ended up being removed. So I also wondered what exactly the point of public benches are if not to actually sit and use them:

Are they just there to look at as you pack your groceries into the car, and think to yourself how nice it would be to sit there one day and chat with friends? What kind of sense does it make to take away a public amenity precisely because someone is actually using it?

Look, I’m not being blasé about crime and public order, and frankly some urbanists are. But again, that wasn’t the problem here. The problem was, maybe, racism. I think it was probably also a culture clash, and a clash of unstated norms about how space is to be used.

I also wrote this, which is something I think about a lot:

One of the things that has begun to click for me about suburban land use, with its stark separation of uses, is that it artificially renders perfectly natural human behavior kind of suspicious. What we call “loitering” is often what we would call in another context “hanging out,” but again, strip malls are not for hanging out. Why? Why ever would you strictly separate socializing from commerce? Isn’t that kind of bizarre?

Most of the men (it usually was men) who I ever saw sitting on these benches were Hispanic, so I wondered, too, if that raised a class/race element to how people perceived the benches: as a public amenity, or as a nuisance. Something like, “Who cares if the benches that are theoretically for everyone are removed, because people like us never use them anyway.”

A few weeks ago, I received a really great and interesting comment on that piece which I’d like to share here. The comment analyzes the placement of the benches, which I photographed in the original piece (well, the spots where they used to be). Here they are again:

And a closeup of one (that fence was also put up after homeowners complained about noise and people walking right in front of their homes):

And here’s the comment:

I share your concerns about the “real” reason these benches were removed; bias, conscious or unconscious. And I’d also point out that the way they were arranged in the first place was pretty lousy and may have also been intended to limit the “troublesome” behaviors you identify:

• They’re spread too far for people on different benches to converse naturally, implicitly limiting the group to the 2-3 people who can fit on a single bench (3 being extra uncomfortable in most cases.)

• If folks on benches opposite each other did raise their voices to chat, then people walking down the walkway have to pass through their loud conversation. Awkward.

• Even if there’s not a 20-foot conversation being lobbed across the path, passersby have to cross the forward gaze of anyone sitting on the benches. Natural human curiosity means that gaze is usually going to follow them a bit, which feels a lot like being stared at and judged—by people either sitting in silence (because there’s no one to talk to) or talking with another “judge.” It’s a psychological gauntlet to walk past multiple benches arrayed like viewing stands on a parade.

• The benches are evenly spaced, so there’s no “good spot” to sit. Universal Space designed for automaton citizens, subtly undermining the unique humanity of the real ones. It speaks well of the Latin community that they have the skills to socialize in a public space designed to frustrate socializing. Perhaps that’s another reason it seems so strange, so “improper” to socialize on a bench, or to “loiter” in a “park.”

Great stuff. This reminds me a lot of this bit I wrote, inspired by a professional designer, about how home design can facilitate socializing or make it more awkward:

A gas or electric fireplace is trendy, easy, and marketable. A real wood-burning fireplace is messy and requires more work (though I guess it’s also pretty salable.) But the thing about a real fireplace is that once you start the fire burning, you don’t know exactly when it will end, and you can’t turn it off. It creates a kind of pleasant, productive friction. “Let’s put on one more log.” “Oh, let’s just stay till the fire goes out.” That uncertainty is binding. It creates a setting for socializing that the gas fireplace doesn’t. “Alright, guess it’s time to wrap up,” you might say, as you flick the switch off.

There’s something subtly alienating, isolating, and anti-social about the smooth, frictionless operation of the thing. The good friction of the real fire draws people together in a way that is awkward to do entirely on your own, when circumstances are working against it.

In a way, urban design is like interior design writ large, and interior design is like urban design in miniature. What can seem like a behavior problem might actually be a design problem. I think that’s so interesting.

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Related Reading:

Crime and Housing

Fifty Million Private Realms Might Be Wrong

Good Friction

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