The great equalizer
"The city is, above all, a social product, created out of the demands of everyday use and the social struggles of urban inhabitants".
"Lefebvre described daily life as the 'screen on which society projects its light and its shadows, its hollows and its planes, its power and its weakness.' "
These two quotes from the text really stuck out to me. The first quote addresses how the built environment is made to reflect the hierarchy of needs and demands. Sidewalks and corner stores exist to fulfill the needs of everyday users. The second half of the quote gives an explanation for the lack of design or care for some public entities. Sidewalks can be unprotected or even nonexistent in areas and further, the car eats up the public spaces between buildings. The second quote again notices the reflection of social issues within the built environment. Our society and its values are exposed through our treatment of public spaces, and who can inhabit them. There is a thin line between these public spaces and overlapping 'everyday spaces' that provide normal backdrops and environments for our lives. Are everyday spaces the great social equalizer in our Western society? Everyone uses these spaces, and the spaces treat everyone equally. Think about a grocery store or gas station. People do not receive higher treatment within these spaces because of their status, but everyone becomes ordinary. Do you agree that these ordinary spaces are the only non-biased architecture? Why or why not?
I think 10 years ago, definitely. Take the grocery store, for instance. Pretty much everyone had to inhabit that space, and there wasn't a difference in treatment (partly why Walmart is a meme to this day). However, now there are 'health' specialty grocery stores, meal delivery services, and grocery delivery services that eliminate this "everyday" space while also conveying impressions of wealth. This can be true even of gas stations (avoidable with Teslas!) I think as convenience and technology takes greater and greater roles in our society, these ordinary spaces will be less and less common.
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