Confessions of a Design Snob

I have been thinking a lot about my planning interests.

Before I went to planning school and learned about ordinances and politics, setbacks and NIMBYs, my driving desire in planning was to create, or at least cultivate, places for people to "hang out," to "just be."

I've come to learn that if I really want to "create" hangouts I'll literally have to put my money where my mouth is and become a developer. And as I rarely balance my checkbook I doubt that taking out a construction loan in my name is a wise idea either.

But the dream lives on.

I know that humanity needs spaces for social interaction, where we can connect- cite Bowling Alone, sociology, some anthropology for good measure, yadda yadda.

The question remains, how to bring it about?

I hate to be all Parisian, 1920's, was-it-ever-really-that-good-or-is-everyone-who'd-offer-up-a- differential-is-dead-so-let's-say-yes-with-abandon, salons, and cafes, but I do think that cafes and coffee houses, despite their inevitable romanticizing and looking at the past with round, hippy rose-colored glasses, remains one of the best places for people of different incomes, races, and creeds to come together without too much inherent strife.

Look at Starbucks. Except for the dude who is monopolizing a table for four, with his laptop and no beverage nor food item in view during a crowded hour, there is rarely any strife. I admit that some times it's a chick who commandeers an entire table without a status-cup in view, nor a baked good to-go bag in sight. Either way, it's uncool when I'm meeting my group for a project get-together in a Starbucks that is well-known as a student studying spot, as it is right next to my campus and you're pecking away on Facebook taking over an entire table not buying anything. You are on warning, sir/ma'am. Starbucks corporate would back up my logic, as much as I'd hate to be in agreement with Starbucks corporate on many issues.

I was thinking about this specifically as I met my friend and fellow planner at USC, Caitlin, at the Mars Cafe, by Drake University, here in Des Moines. Caitlin grew up in Des Moines and said that the Mars Cafe was "the cool place to hang out for the cool kids," which she self-deprecatingly declared that she wouldn't know from personal experience.

I laughed, remembering the cool coffee shop in the town that I spent the majority of my childhood called, Something's Brewing. I vowed, as a child, that when I went to high school that I would hang out there after school and be so cool. Unfortunately, I only frequented that establishment on weekends, and often accompanied by my dad, which is the polar opposite of cool to a high schooler.

But the Mars Cafe was cool. It was the longest wait I've ever had for a hot cup of cider (my poison of choice in the winter). Yet it had the requisite locally-produced, winking-at-pop-culture art, the kid-friendly toys, and the slightly funky vibe that a local college coffeehouse has.

However, it felt a little too "new," too static-y, I don't know if because it's wedged in a nondescript strip center, if the roof felt too high, if the glass was gasp! too commercial (as opposed to I don't know too bohemian? I know it can't all be Art Nouveau. But it should be!) If the paint wasn't peeling in the right places, if the tables weren't "distressed" enough to warrant approval. Thanks to David Brooks, my "bobo" aesthetic is now highly attuned to bruise tones and the right level of distressed finishes, ie does it look like someone took a hammer to it or sanded the heck out of it even though it's brand-new? (see Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks, a slightly culturally dated reference as it was pre dotcom bust. Still socially scathing in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. You'll never look at Anthropologie the same way again post-read)

This summer I went to the Bourgeois Pig, great name, mais non? in Hollywood to see a friend off before he left town for osteopathy school. The BP, as it is not called, is also directly across the street from the Celebrity Scientology Center. I wish I could say that I made that up. The BP, besides its hilarious location, is what I think of when I think coffeehouse. It's wedged in a strip too. The pig does not stand alone. There's a cute, quirky gift shop next door, and a slightly more formal restaurant to the right. But it definitely has that lived-in vibe that I crave.

"Tell me what you think of the inside," my friend said with a grin after we'd exchanged pleasantries and I was about to go inside to place my order. "Why?" I asked, expecting some Hollywood freak show of half-assembled mannequins peeking out of dark corners, or a porcelain unicorn collection on display whose sheer quantity would render one speechless. This is Hollywood, not the star machine of yore. More like the sideshow carny with that lecherous look in the eye. It's surreal fun, but you'll want too bring your Purel just in case. "You'll see." he grinned and took a nonchalant sip of his Yerba Mate tea.

The inside of the establishment is painted a dark, dark cobalt blue. It's a small space with an old bar, old school cash register, and gilt gold decorations, including the namesake pig, peering out at odd angles. I'd never been in a coffeeshop that looked like it was painted by a pre-teen whose artistic vision exceed his grasp of good interior design. But I've yet to forget the place.

Maybe Time not only heals all wounds, but also provides that patina we need to give a place that sense of history, of community. Or maybe the Starbucks aesthetic is just fine.

Sandra Tsing Loh comments on said aesthetic (as have many other writers, who I won't cite here) and how it has permeated her entire life.

"My generation. . . our psyches, our aesthetics have become totally Starbucks-ized! I expect every space I enter to look like Starbucks. I walk into a room and expect to be immediately bathed in earth tones, track lighting, and a story on a chalkboard about how far organically grown Costa Rican beans have traveled to see me, me, me. . ." (from Sandra Tsing Loh's Mother on Fire, 257).

I'm not anti-the Starbucks aesthetic. But I'd prefer a drink at the Bourgeois Pig over the nearest Starbucks and not just because the Bourgeois barista was genuinely excited at my request for a raspberry mocha compared to the green-aproned peeps at the coffee chain named after the first mate on the Pequod in Moby Dick (true story), who I could create the most inane custom order and they wouldn't blink. Sheesh, sometimes the customer isn't always right. Sometimes s/he's a raging lunatic and must be put down like Old Yeller. Or maybe it's my phobia of becoming an insufferable yuppie talking.

Granted, I'm a horrible design snob, but I'm also a history nerd. And if a place feels like it's been around forever, or at least I can't tell, I'll happily pony up $3.99 for a thimbleful of chai. Ah, marketing, you destroy me and revive me.

Irregardless, our built environment has forgotten to mandate "the third place" as Ray Oldenburg calls them in his excellent work, the Great Good Place.

To cite Wikipedia, Oldenburg calls one's "first place" the home and those that one lives with. The "second place" is the workplace — where people may actually spend most of their time. Third places, then, are "anchors" of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction. All societies already have informal meeting places; what is new in modern times is the intentionality of seeking them out as vital to current societal needs. Oldenburg suggests these hallmarks of a true "third place": free or inexpensive; food and drink, while not essential, are important; highly accessible: proximate for many (walking distance); involve regulars – those who habitually congregate there; welcoming and comfortable; both new friends and old should be found there. -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

While it may take me a lifetime to actually use that helpful sheet of paper that my bank encloses with each monthly account statement, at least there is food for thought for what could be added to our built environment as the absence of a third place leaves a vacuum in our social lives.