Richard K. Rein

“Heard on the street.” For years as a reporter I relied on that phrase as a catch-all to describe some news source that – for a variety of reasons – would best not be identified by name. “Heard on the street” could have been something whispered off the record at a coffee shop or bar or overheard at the next table at a restaurant or while waiting in line at the public library. Today, at least, it’s literally from the street, either heard or seen on one of my daily perambulations around town. Some snippets:

Who’s out and about? A lot of people, and almost all of them are practicing pretty good “social distancing,” a phrase that I now am replacing with “physical distancing.” There’s plenty of socializing possible at a six-foot (or even 20-foot) distance.

One day last week a friend and I chatted over coffee at opposite sides of a large outdoor table at Hinds Plaza in front of the public library. While there and chatting with other visitors at other tables, 20 feet away, we speculated on the possibility of Princeton University cancelling its annual Reunions weekend, the largest event of the year for both the school and the town, which relies on it as a major economic driver.

We thought about the curse that seems to have visited the college Class of 1970. Many schools’ graduations were curtailed or canceled that year because of the killing of four Kent State students by the National Guard and the subsequent campus protests. At Princeton graduation went on as scheduled, with Coretta Scott King and Bob Dylan among others receiving honorary degrees. But most of the class did not participate in the alumni “P-Rade.” Instead the class president marched alone with a protest banner. On the occasion of its 50^th reunion the class could have marched in force, carrying all sorts of banners commemorating and poking fun at its senior year self. Could have, but will not – no Princeton P-Rade this year.> Read More …

When does social distancing lead to social isolation? Will the coronavirus epidemic lead to a loneliness epidemic?

These questions came to me on lucky Friday, the 13^th of March, when I checked out a book from my neighborhood library, walked the three short blocks back to my house, and turned on the computer to find a message from the same library l had just visited:

“In light of the rapidly evolving situation regarding the COVID-19 virus, the Board of Trustees has decided to close Princeton Public Library from Saturday, March 14, through Sunday, March 29, at which time the closure will be reassessed. This decision was made in consultation with municipal officials and in consideration of the well-being of our staff and community. . .

“While the building is closed, library cardholders can still access a broad range of digital resources including e-books, audiobooks, movies, music, tutorials and research tools through the library’s website. For updates, see the library website.”

The announcement struck me as cold and institutional. As many of us in town realize, the Princeton Public Library is far more than a repository of books and a venue for occasional literary events. In our town, and I suspect most other towns, the public library has become a bustling “third place” for people who seek a change of pace from home or the workplace. For people who manage to survive without a car in a mostly-car dependent suburb, the library is also especially important as a physical gathering place with friends and casual acquaintances. For some residents, who no longer have a workplace for whatever reason, the library is now the “second place.”

On behalf of those people, I would have liked some acknowledgment from the library management, something like “We understand that the library serves many roles for many people. Those whose daily routines are disrupted by our closing are in our thoughts. Our hope is to return to normal as soon as possible.”

But soothing words, even if they had actually been offered, can go only so far. What else could be done to forestall the onset of a loneliness epidemic? Here are a few ideas, many of which will be familiar to advocates of good public places. Most could be implemented easily and inexpensively, especially as winter gives way to spring:

Go for a walk. Walking around town may be one of the last activities allowed for individuals not showing any signs of illness. If you walk briskly – more than three miles per hour — for a half hour or more it will be a good cardiovascular exercise. A walk at any speed will be a good emotional experience.

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What’s the secret sauce of successful public places? And could that secret sauce be used to improve other places, such as workplaces?

For the past few years I have been trying to figure out the secret sauce of public spaces, such as town squares, plazas, and parks, as well as quasi-public places, like coffeeshops, bookstores, and neighborhood diners and bars. Altogether these places form the fabric of creative communities. In the 1980s William H. Whyte studied the flight of corporations from big cities to the suburbs, and predicted many of them would eventually return to the city, where “truly critical negotiations” can be done “informally, on common meeting grounds equally accessible to both parties.” These places, Whyte wrote, “are at the heart of the city’s intelligence networks” and are “the genius of the place.”

Now those public places are being subjected to additional critical analysis. Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology has created a center for the “Future of Places,” aimed at defining the psychological, social, infrastructural, and environmental importance of public spaces. A doctoral student at Georgia Institute of Technology, Maria P. Roche, has gathered research that suggests “the actual physical capacity to connect people and ideas may, in fact, be one reason why cities, and some neighborhoods are more conducive for innovation than others.” A book published in October, 2019, Changing Places: The Science and Art of New Urban Planning, written by professors from Penn, Columbia, and DePaul universities, addresses how the science of urban planning can make cities healthier, more livable, and safer.

Physical public spaces could even teach the designers of virtual public spaces — the online platforms –a thing or two. Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble and an advocate of online democracy, has initiated a study of how urban planning principles could improve the quality of the “online public square,” where we spend an increasing amount of our time. (More on Pariser’s work and a link to his TED talk on this subject at the end of this piece.)

What seems clear to me is that the most beneficial public spaces or quasi-public spaces are not necessarily the most expensive ones or the ones with the most elaborate designs.

The physical space in which people work ‘is the biggest lever to encourage collaboration. . . . and serendipitous interaction.’ So why not consider the elements of a good public place when planning the workplace?

The same could be said for another kind of place – the workplace. Before I was thinking about public places, I was an entrepreneur building a business from a kitchen table operation into a medium-sized community news organization. I spent much of my time paying attention to the workplace — not just the physical space in which we worked but also the dynamics of how we related to each other and how we related to the community we served. As I found with public places, the critical success elements of the workplace were not always the most expensive. The happiest workers cared not just about compensation and benefits, but also about more subjective factors such as their contribution to the community at large, how much they were able to advance their professional standing, and the quality of their interaction with coworkers.

So now I wonder: Could some of the critical success factors for public places be adapted and applied to the workplace? The short answer is yes, and the bottom line is that I wish now I had studied public spaces first, and then applied that knowledge to my management of the workplace.

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