Commercial venues like Starbucks succeed by selling degraded substitutes for genuine public space

Evidence

MF: I think we have got to distinguish public space from the state. The state is legitimate, I would argue, insofar as it facilitates public space, but the public must be thought of as separate from the state. The state might be a precondition for the public, but it isn’t the same. People want public space, which is why Starbucks is popular because it offers a generic sociality. It is a form of anonymous, generic kind of space, and even things like the X Factor, why people like it is because people are publicly, collectively, communing in something. So it shows that even in these conditions, where ideologically everything is opposed to the public, there is still a desire for the public and all we are getting is degraded forms. What communism would offer is you can have these generic spaces where people can come in but you don’t have to pay for shit coffee. That’s the kind of public space we need in the future really, where people can get together but don’t have the parasitic add-ons of capital really. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2280

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with the reader’s prior material on silence and public space — Starbucks as a ‘generic sociality’ parallels how commercial spaces fabricate the communal the reader studies in civic design. — connects to: Faux public spaces reduce visitors to consumers or threats — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 80; Commercial culture can be repurposed for active face-to-face community — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 916

Broader Connections

• Faux public spaces reduce visitors to consumers or threats #expands (0.90) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 80
• Commercial culture can be repurposed for active face-to-face community #complicates (0.78) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 916