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

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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?

And so he spends time in public libraries, seeing how people of differing ages, status and ethnicities cohabit their spaces, how conflicts are negotiated and collaborations start, and how these institutions give refuge to people who feel excluded or diminished elsewhere. He describes an initiative in Brooklyn libraries where older people can play in virtual bowling leagues as a way of getting them out of their homes and meeting people.

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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. That said, the fundamental premise of this book, a defense of social infrastructure and its role in creating and cohering our society, in a way that doesn't just meet our most immediate needs but also connects us to each other and overcomes the sense of isolation that so many millions of us feel, is one I very passionately agree with. And several of the many sections of the book that focus on libraries had me near tears.

Klinenberg, a professor of sociology at New York University, examines how our social structures--from the library to schools to community gardens--can help mitigate problems and challenges of our divided civic life. He posits that neighborhoods, regardless of economic or over-all social standing, which have strong social infrastructure do better at taking care of one another when crises strike and also do better at resisting crime and other negative social impacts. In Palaces for the People, Eric Klinenberg suggests a way forward. He believes that the future of democratic societies rests not simply on shared values but on shared spaces: the libraries, childcare centers, churches, and parks where crucial connections are formed. Interweaving his own research with examples from around the globe, Klinenberg shows how “social infrastructure” is helping to solve some of our most pressing societal challenges. Richly reported and ultimately uplifting, Palaces for the People offers a blueprint for bridging our seemingly unbridgeable divides. 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 The systems we build in coming years will tell future generations who we are and how we see the world today. If we fail to bridge our gaping social divisions, they may even determine whether that “we” continues to exist. Today, nations around the world are poised to spend trillions of dollars on vital infrastructure projects that we need to get through the twenty- first century and beyond. Before we lift the next shovel, we should know what we want to improve, what we need to protect, and, more important, what kind of society we want to create for our post-COVID 19 world.

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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. Place-based interventions are far more likely to succeed than people-based ones. What if vacant property received the attention that, for decades, has been showered on petty crime? All of which set me off and made me make comments which I immediately regretted and turned me into that thing I never wanted to see myself become: a troll. This is neither here nor there, however, and completely beside the point. Klinenberg quotes C. Ray Jeffery: “There are no criminals, only environmental circumstances which result in criminal behavior. Given the proper environmental structure, anyone will be a criminal or a noncriminal” (59). Yet Klinenberg argues that “. . . most policies that aim to reduce crime focus on punishing people rather than improving places” (59). In what ways does one’s environment shape one’s choices? How can environments be designed to discourage crime? I never joined the early morning Tai Chi or group dance sessions in the parks near the places I stayed in Shanghai or Beijing, but undoubtedly millions of older Chinese people participate in them regularly for the social as well as physical benefits. In Iceland, geo­thermal swimming pools called “hot pots” are vital civic spaces, where people regularly cross class and generational lines. The Mexican zócalo, the Spanish plaza (or plaça, in Barcelona), and the Italian piazza serve the same function. I’ve never been to Rio de Janeiro, the Seychelles, Kingston, Jamaica, or Cape Town, but I’ve spent enough time in other coastal areas and lakefronts to know that nearly everyone appreciates the social opportunities created by a well-maintained beach.