Keep 'em Separated: Distance, Technology, and Shrinking Public Space

It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In
L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we
crash into each other, just so we can feel something.
-Crash (2004)

The Academy Award winning Crash is a telling depiction of the impact racial tensions have had in Los
Angeles. The film’s ensemble cast provides several perspectives of everyday life and community perverted by
racism and mistrust. In a similar fashion, Mike Davis discusses the city’s development into a corporate,
middle-class stronghold. More recently, Marina Peterson’s Patrolling the Plaza attempts to untangle the
marginalized groups from the neoliberal web that is modern Los Angeles. Indeed, the discourse surrounding
the evolution of public space and society has not strayed far beyond the bounds of race and class. As a result,
the extent to which neoliberalism has gripped the country is uncertain, and the impact of other factors, such as
technology, has not been elucidated. Though social prejudice is certainly related to the disintegration of public
spaces, both may be symptoms of another issue. Readers of Davis and Peterson will notice that both evoke true
public space as a sort of keystone for an ideal democracy, yet fail to investigate the validity or implications of
this assumption. Moreover, both criticize modernization for harming specific populations, but do not examine
the factors of modernity that have made these exclusions possible. Upon closer inspection, though, it seems that
technological and economic advancement has altered culture in such a way as to make these ideal public spaces
untenable.

Much of the public space dialogue revolves around the idea of public space as open and accessible to all. Davis
denounces the divisive influence General Harrison Gray Otis has had on the city, preferring instead the ‘free
beeches’ of ‘genuinely democratic space.’ Peterson, likewise, offers ‘the demarcation of private, controlled
entrances and a visible security presence’ as evidence for the denaturing of true public space. Accessibility and
a sense of acceptance do seem like obvious elements of public space. Even the word ‘public,’ as Peterson
points out, implies some supposedly unbounded group that is in control. The question, then, is what these
democratic spaces would look like if they were to exist. Activities associated with communal parks and picnic
tables appear to fall far short of the democratic label, which calls for a more meaningful interaction between
people. While a group of teenagers might play frisbee in a park, or city goers might enjoy lunch outside, Davis
and his peers demand more political, cooperative actions. Protests such as those occurring in Tahrir Square
during the Arab Spring are more common examples of true public space, as citizens overcame racial and
religious differences, the metal and glass separating the characters in Crash, and united against a common
enemy. Even the first examples of public spaces, the Roman Forum and the Agora in Athens, were not just
marketplaces, but theaters, meeting grounds, and the site of political speeches: the cultural, socioeconomic, and
political centers of their cities. Davis clearly urges a return to these functions, but it is unclear how public
beaches and benches can fulfill these roles.

Though Davis and Peterson undoubtedly speak some truth of the systematic inequalities leveled against
minority groups in modern Los Angeles, as well as the rest of the nation, one is still inclined to ask whether
such democratic spaces exist, even in a socially selective form. If racism and classism are at the root of urban
planning in California, as Davis asserts, then there must be areas in which the privileged gather to debate US
foreign policy or enjoy public performances. Furthermore, if the security measures mentioned by Patterson are
really ‘techniques of biopower,’ then the behavior of the public surely must change in areas which are not under
constant control and surveillance. However, personal experience undoubtedly proves the opposite. The simple
fact is that it is unusual for a person to engage socially with others in public. And this is not due to any social
prejudice: black, white, poor, or wealthy, the general public practices an equal opportunity aloofness.

Whether this is a result of neoliberalism’s pervasive grip on America, or some other factor, though, is less
obvious. As Rosalyn Deutsche states, and Peterson concurs, it is often difficult to distinguish neoliberal guises
from the movements and trends whose form they take on. A housing company might attempt to portray a new
condominium as sustainable and modern, riding the coattails of innovation to maximize profit. The perils
associated with unchecked capitalism are well documented in the discussion of public space, but it is entirely
possible that neoliberalism has already swept the country away, and that the systemic biases noted by Davis are
just the tip of the iceberg, rendering him and his peers as the luddites of the modern age, raging against a
machine that has already won. Indeed, there are plenty of instances pointing toward neoliberalism’s
dominance: the unprecedented immediacy between consumers and corporations aided by platforms such as
Facebook and Google, the intrusion of brand names into social media platforms previously reserved for humans
only, or the fusion of entertainment and information carried out by news programs like FOX or CNN, which
compromises the integrity of its content for the sake of quantity and viewership. Before rushing to conclusions
about this new Huxleyan world, though, it is worth considering these occurrences from another perspective.

The opening lines of Crash juxtapose the self-containment and isolation felt by Los Angeles citizens to the more
natural community supposedly present in other cities. Indeed, ‘community’ seems to encompass all of the goals
of public space, which at its most basic level provides a ground in which people can form connections
independent of the labels placed upon them by their jobs, religions, economic standing, etc. While obstacles
like racism do impede one’s ability to form and be integrated into communities, the bigger problem seems to be
that the places in which communities are formed has shifted. While Ancient Greeks and Romans had to venture
outside to connect with other humans, the rise of cell phones and the internet has rendered this step unnecessary.
Friendships are formed and maintained, through the use of technology, in private. Unbounded access to a
global network might be expected to have the opposite effect, thrusting individuals further into public space,
yet, as Slavoj Zizek writes, this is not the case:

It is often said that today, with our exposure to the media, culture of public confessions and instruments of digital control, private
space is disappearing. One should counter this: it is the public space proper that is disappearing. The person who displays on the web
his or her naked images or intimate data is not an exhibitionist: exhibitionists intrude into the public space, while those who post their
naked images on the web remain in their private space and are just expanding it to include others.

Though the internet has bridged the gap between continents and cities, it has only served to raise more walls
around individuals. The worldwide exposure granted by the internet comes with equal levels of control and
anonymity, maintaining one’s self-containment rather than rupturing it.

Moreover, globalization has destroyed the grounds on which communities are formed. While the lower classes
of Greece and Rome, dominated by oligarchies and aristocracies, adhered to uniform economic and cultural
norms, the conquering of Nationalism by Multiculturalism has made cities more heterogeneous. The term
‘Public’ no longer refers to any one group, but a conglomeration of smaller cliques and parties. The diversity
prized by multiculturalists has been taken for granted as social policy has only served to mitigate difference,
rather than treasure it. The racially motivated policies denigrated by Davis attempted to end the struggles
between culturally divergent groups, and the urban sprawl allowed communities to regroup in different sectors
of the city. The American melting pot has mixed in which variable flavors complement each other. Instead,
under the guise of liberalism, social groups tolerate one another on a day-to-day basis, but just as easily slip
back into their neatly divided subsections, aided by technologies which allow the extension of one’s private life
into a 24 hour affair. These divisions are made obvious if one looks at any ‘public’ space. The Piazza della
Signoria in Florence, for example, contains several individual communities meeting in private, rather than a
dynamic congregation of interacting groups.

The extent to which this new form of social isolation is just a manifestation of the egotism at the root of
capitalism, a position which Zizek holds, is still uncertain. However, it is clear that the racism and economic
control explored by Davis and Peterson are two bites of the same cookie. Social integration has become
impossible in a world dominated by technological advancement. The only question is whether this newfangled
resistance to public community is desirable.