Being in a City Without Having to Spend

Imagine having two spare hours in the city centre one afternoon. It is too early to go home and too early for our next appointment. We would like to sit down, but we do not want to order anything. Shops, cafés and places to spend surround us. There are plenty of chairs in sight. Finding somewhere to use one without making a purchase may be another matter.

This small search reveals something important about our relationship with a city. If being somewhere always requires becoming a customer, our ability to remain there narrows with our spending power. Businesses offer facilities that understandably have a price. But when we leave every need for rest, meeting and waiting to that relationship, we leave part of our shared life unprovided for.

The value of a bench cannot be understood simply by counting how many people use it. It lets someone carrying bags catch their breath, allows an older person to divide a walk into stages, and gives two friends somewhere to talk without considering the bill. It occupies little space but extends the time different people can spend in the city. Sometimes the public value of a place becomes apparent in how comfortably and how long we can remain.

Being allowed to enter and feeling entitled to stay are different experiences. A door may be open while a person senses they are expected to leave. Having to explain why we are resting, what we are waiting for or why we are there creates an invisible boundary to access. The quality of a shared place also depends on this ordinary welcome.

Staying requires its own infrastructure

Leaving an open space in a square does not by itself enable people to stay. Shade, seating, an accessible toilet, drinking water and clear directions matter. Someone with a child, someone using a walking stick and someone carrying heavy shopping may need different things. If we design only for people who walk quickly, never tire and already know everything, we leave many others outside the picture.

Libraries offer a particular possibility here. A person may visit to work quietly, read a newspaper, use a desk unavailable at home or gather their thoughts, as well as to borrow a book. The value lies both in the material provided and in the breathing room opened within a day. Yet unsuitable hours, difficult journeys or unclear rules can mean that the open door offers unequal opportunities.

Shared spaces can also make different lives visible to one another. People from different professions, income groups and social circles may sit beside each other in a park. We cannot assume that proximity automatically produces understanding. It nevertheless creates a setting in which we can encounter each other within everyday life, rather than knowing one another only through screens and inherited stereotypes.

Judging that setting entirely through its events calendar misses something. A weekly performance in a square may be valuable, but every empty hour does not need programming. There should be room for people’s own conversations, silences and small gatherings. A place need not continually become a stage in order to be useful. Sometimes the absence of a special occasion allows everyone to make an ordinary day of their own.

Noticing whom we make room for

A free space still costs money to maintain. Cleaning, lighting and staff time do not appear by themselves. Asking only for open doors, without considering this work, is insufficient. Shared use requires identifiable responsibilities and resources. We cannot separate the opportunities offered to users from the conditions of the people who keep them available.

The idea of shared space is sometimes tested when we encounter someone we would rather were not there. We may readily accept people whose lives resemble ours while treating somebody else’s presence as a problem. Safety, consideration for others and care for the place require rules. Regulating conduct, however, differs from deciding that a person is unwelcome because of appearance or poverty.

That is why I do not want to judge a place by its attractive photograph alone. Spending time there can reveal who arrives, who leaves quickly, where people search for shade and which path nobody uses. Actual use answers questions that a drawing cannot. Moving a bench a few metres, clarifying a sign or changing opening hours can make a considerable difference to someone’s day.

No city can meet every need in one location. It can create small opportunities that support one another: a resting place near a school, shelter at a bus stop, an accessible reading room in a neighbourhood. The task extends beyond building one impressive centre. It includes making everyday life usable along the routes between people’s homes and their responsibilities.

Belonging sometimes requires no grand declaration. Knowing we can sit when tired, find water when thirsty and pause without having to justify ourselves may be enough. A city then becomes more than a route along which we complete errands. It becomes somewhere we can spend time, without haste, alongside other people.

When discussing a city’s development, buildings, investment and activity deserve consideration. I would add a simpler question: what sort of day can someone with no money in their pocket have here? Our answer will also describe the life we have left between the things we build.