Palaces for the People: How To Build a More Equal and United Society

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What counts as social infrastructure? I define it capaciously. Public institutions, such as libraries, schools, playgrounds, parks, athletic fields, and swimming pools, are vital parts of the social infrastructure. So too are sidewalks, courtyards, community gar­dens, and other green spaces that invite people into the public realm. Community organizations, including churches and civic associations, act as social infrastructures when they have an estab­lished physical space where people can assemble, as do regularly scheduled markets for food, furniture, clothing, art, and other con­sumer goods. Commercial establishments can also be important parts of the social infrastructure, particularly when they operate as what the sociologist Ray Oldenburg called “third spaces,” places (like cafés, diners, barbershops, and bookstores) where people are welcome to congregate and linger regardless of what they’ve pur­chased. Entrepreneurs typically start these kinds of businesses be­cause they want to generate income. But in the process, as close observers of the city such as Jane Jacobs and the Yale ethnographer Elijah Anderson have discovered, they help produce the material foundations for social life. […] Eric Klinenberg: Palaces for the People | Talks at Google,” (tiny.cc/klinenberggoogle): The author speaks about his book and provides additional context for ideas explored in the text. I didn't think that I could dislike a book as much as I dislike THIS book, but yes, I really disliked this book. Wonderful ideas and some really interesting points but I do not trust ANY book which talks about race and sociology without talking about white privilege and white supremacy. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems this man wrote an entire book about community while NOT ONCE naming white supremacy. Eric Klineberg is a Professor of Sociology at NYU and an author of several books. Palaces for People is how Andrew Carnegie described free public libraries when he generously donated funds to build over 2800 libraries across the nation.

The Concord Handbook: How to Build Social Capital Across Communities,” (tiny.cc/uclasocialcapital): A handbook created by the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research, outlining design principles that effective organizations have used in “creating ‘bridging social capital’—the human and organizational resources that span social differences.” This is a resource for organizations and others interested in implementing strategies that successfully bring differing groups together across communities. Eric Klinenberg believes that social life can be designed well, just as good buildings are. His book is full of hope, which is all the more striking because Klinenberg is a realist. He is a major social thinker, and this is a beautifully written, major book.” modern infrastructure—for reliable power, clean water, fast transit, affordable food, and resilient structures—has done more to improve public health than any other modern intervention, including scientific medicine” Americans are in a crisis of loneliness. Factors like the pandemic and our deep political divides have kept us isolated, while social media and media echo chambers sort many of us into silos. There isn’t a single reason why this loneliness crisis exists, but there is a way to recover: Social infrastructure.Klinenberg is a professor of sociology and the director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He coined the term “social infrastructure” to describe the libraries, day-care centers, bookstores, coffee shops, and community gardens that shape our face-to-face interactions, and he has been exploring it for decades—ever since his landmark study of Chicago during the 1995 heat wave. He was the research director for the Obama administration’s Rebuild by Design project, where he worked to integrate social infrastructure into post–Hurricane Sandy rebuilding plans. In PALACES FOR THE PEOPLE, he applies this deep knowledge, stemming from years of both research and application, to diverse communities and challenges around the globe—from Singapore to Brazil and from East New York to Silicon Valley—to show how interactive physical spaces are combating some of the most profound problems of our time. Read The Inequalities-Environment Nexus report and find out more about the OECD Well-Being Framework Harvard Kennedy School Social Capital Toolkit,” (tiny.cc/socialcapitaltoolkit): A resource providing information about social capital and how it encourages development in communities. Klinenberg writes, “In coming decades, the world’s most affluent societies will invest trillions of dollars on new infrastructure—seawalls, smart grids, basins for capturing rainwater—that can withstand twenty-first century challenges, including megastorms like Harvey and Irma” (187). What opportunities arise for the development of social infrastructure alongside increased spending on physical infrastructure? How did the winning projects in the Rebuild by Design competition following Hurricane Sandy, for which Klinenberg served as research director, integrate social infrastructure? In what ways does the incorporation of social infrastructure into these projects potentially affect the community before, during, and after megastorms and natural disasters? In Bangladesh, the “floating schools and libraries” program was implemented by a nonprofit. What level of responsibility for innovative programs such as this falls to the government, to citizens, or to nonprofits? What are the best means by which to affect innovative changes in one’s community?

The community room serves many purposes: theater, classroom, art studio, civic hall. But this morning two staff members, Terry and Christine, will transform it into something unusual: a virtual bowling alley. They’ve arrived early to set up a flat screen television, link an Xbox to the Internet, clear out a play space, and assemble two rows of portable chairs. It’s opening day of the Library Lanes Bowling League, a new program that encourages older patrons in twelve libraries in Brooklyn to join local teams and compete against neighboring branches. Nine people at New Lots signed up to play, and after weeks of practice, they’re about to take on Brownsville and Cypress Hills.Race: Klinenberg delves into the shared social spaces that either create and entrench racial segregation or encourage mixed communities, looking at historical divisions in cities like Chicago, New York, and Baltimore—and the contemporary organizations and institutions like public libraries and pools that are bridging racial divides and fostering cohesion. Publicly traded corporations, including Facebook, are legally required to maximize shareholder value, and while some CEOs define value expansively, most focus on the bottom line.” The aim of this sweeping work is to popularize the notion of ‘social infrastructure’—the ‘physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact’. . . . Here, drawing on research in urban planning, behavioral economics, and environmental psychology, as well as on his own fieldwork from around the world, [Eric Klinenberg] posits that a community’s resilience correlates strongly with the robustness of its social infrastructure. The numerous case studies add up to a plea for more investment in the spaces and institutions (parks, libraries, childcare centers) that foster mutual support in civic life.” — The New Yorker People forge bonds in places that have healthy social infrastructures—not because they set out to build community, but because when people engage in sustained, recurrent interaction, particularly while doing things they enjoy, relationships inevitably grow.” An eminent sociologist and bestselling author offers an inspiring blueprint for rebuilding our fractured society

Klinenberg describes the impacts that the tech giants in California have on surrounding areas, writing, “There is another community that has suffered devastating losses since Facebook and other big tech companies began setting up shop in the Bay Area: poor, working-class, and middle-class residents of the region, who have been steadily priced and crowded out” (213). What responsibility do large companies have as they expand into preexisting neighborhoods and communities? How and for what should they be held accountable? Contrasting the philanthropy of today’s business owners with that of the tycoons of the past, Klinenberg explains,“Entrepreneurs have amassed vast fortunes in the new information economy, and yet no one has come close to doing what Carnegie did between 1883 and 1929, when he funded construction of 2,811 lending libraries, 1,679 of which are in the United States” (218). Is it the responsibility of wealthy individuals to contribute to social infrastructure? Why or why not? Does the fact that the entire tech industry “depends on a technology developed by the government—the Internet—and a publicly funded communications infrastructure” (219) play a role in their degree of accountability to the public? He provides an example of how Englewood, a Chicago neighborhood that was a food desert, created farms to grow local produce with the help of an organization called Growing Home.This is a book with which few Observer readers will disagree. It champions “social infrastructure”, meaning libraries, urban farms, playgrounds, sports grounds and all the other shared spaces that allow people to make connections, form networks and find ways to know and help one another. It doesn’t like Trump, racial segregation or climate change denial. Its theme is important and timely, but it leaves you wanting more. Read more on the Forum Network: The New Social Contract: Young adults reinventing life, work, and retirement by Njani Ruetsch, Associate Retirement Researcher, Aegon Center A recent ethno­graphic study of the New York City subway system, for instance, shows that people forge “transient communities” as they ride through the metropolis. The daily experience of spending time on crowded train cars rarely leads to long-term relationships, but it helps passengers learn to deal with difference, density, diversity, and other people’s needs. It fosters cooperation and trust. It exposes people to unexpected behavior and challenges stereotypes about group identity. The subway is not only New York City’s main social artery but also its largest and most heterogeneous public space. […] If America appears fractured at the national level, the author suggests, it can be mended at the local one. This is an engrossing, timely, hopeful read, nothing less than a new lens through which to view the world and its current conflicts.” — Booklist (starred) The book would also benefit from a tougher edge when telling its feelgood stories. It would be more credible if it told more of what happened next, of what works and what doesn’t. As for Big, my knowledge of the company’s work so far suggests that it is not the go-to practice for effective and cost-effective public work. I would be fascinated to discover that it is, in fact, achieving such a thing in New York, but the evidence isn’t there.