Space and Place are more than Coordinates: Thinking about Cultural Cafes as a Pro-Social Project in Jordan
As Jordanians emerge from six weeks of one of the world’s strictest Covid-19 measures – lockdowns, curfews, driving bans, governorates cut off from others – the lack of public space will likely become glaringly obvious. Interestingly, the total ban on driving led to a flourishing of public space as the sidewalks (already in a dismal condition) expanded to the more spacious asphalt between the margins. Bicycles proliferated and pedestrians owned the roadways absent the fear of grave bodily injury. It was, in short, an overnight expansion of public space and public life. Now, with the ban on driving lifted for almost-all of Jordan and as cars begin to recolonize the streets, pushing public space to margins, there may be feelings of something lost. Indeed, the need for public space and a social commons, already rare pre-Covid19, may now be in even greater demand.
Until recently, Jordan’s largely unplanned expansion of cities mostly due to waves of refugee influxes has resulted in a built environment across Jordanian cities that prioritized housing and settlement of populations at the expense of public spaces, gardens, and parks. The socio-economic importance of public space and its effect on cohesive communities and resilient cities has come to the fore in recent decades. Worldwide, cities house half the world’s population and by 2050 this will increase to two-thirds. In Jordan, this has already occurred. Cities in Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa governorates alone house 75% of Jordan’s entire population.
The lack of access to places that provide opportunities for social interaction, mixing, and inclusion transcends traditional fault-lines in society – whether class or ethnic. Ask most Jordanians, and they’ll provide a response that, when aggregated, sounds a lot like this (whether they experienced it directly, or from word-of-mouth): Young people graduate from university and given the poor socio-economic conditions in their cities, they tend to become idle and waste time smoking tobacco in cafes, roaming the streets, and spending too much time online. This amount of idle time combined with depression and pessimism following graduating with no job (and therefore little prospect for relationships) leads to an increase in negative coping mechanisms such as drug abuse, generalized crime, and infrequently, extremism. These graduates did everything the society asked of them, and the social contract, in the end, failed them.
The end result, many will tell you, is enduring pessimism, stress, and anxiety about the future surely exacerbated by weeks of isolation of (likely unwanted and forced) introspection. Can access to more safe spaces ameliorate what now is seemingly a worldwide youth anxiety and existential dread about the future? Some Jordanians think so. They work hard in their societies and communities to foster cultural spaces or cafes, where young people can engage with art, culture, music, discourse, and diversity. One Jordanian in Irbid, when interviewed by the author pre-Covid19 simply stated they “wanted to see public spaces where youth could breath and relax”. The story told about youth across cities, by people of different demographics and socio-economic backgrounds, and the benefit that they believe public and youth-designed spaces could have is intriguing and deserves far more attention.
This isn’t an idea simply dreamt of by musicians and artists post-concert or post-exhibit in smoke-filled rooms. Academics have written about ‘safe spaces’ and their importance for society. For example, in Health & Place, Dines and Cattell et al. write that the socio-economic value of space lies in its ability to forge “people’s attachment to their locality and opportunities for mixing with others, and in people’s memory of places.” The social change-driven Joseph Rowntree Foundation further comments that public spaces provide “a forum for people of different backgrounds to mingle and develop awareness of others who are different from themselves…[In short,] sustainable communities need well-designed everyday spaces and places that are well managed, well serviced, safe and activated by different forms of economic, cultural and social exchange.” These spaces are especially important in marginalized, poorer neighbourhoods because they extend the small living spaces outside and provide outlets for social, economic, and cultural activities.
The World Bank, which has carried out several projects to foster and re-generate spaces throughout the “Global South,” has also recognized the importance of public space and its knock-on effects for community and economic development. An urban planning specialist working at the World Bank commented that “research increasingly suggests that [public spaces] are even more critical to the well-being of the poor and the development of their communities…The lack of provisions for public spaces hampers economic activities, pollutes the environment, and reduces social stability and security.” The World Bank has now held several ‘urbanscape symposiums’ bringing together interdisciplinary experts to think, plan, and develop plans to encourage communities and governments to prioritize public space. See below an infographic from the World Bank showing the interconnectedness of economy, sociality, and space.
As the world’s population continues to urbanize, we should all pay attention to the importance of public space in creating vibrant, sustainable, and resilient cities and communities. Jane Jacobs, the esteemed social commentator and activist who first championed and wrote about community-based approaches to urban planning, commented in 1961 that public space constitutes an important part of the city overall: “This is what a city is, bits and pieces that supplement each other and support each other.” These spaces don’t have to be expensive, government-initiative public infrastructure projects, or even perfectly planned. They can be iterative and slightly messy, as long as the local community uses the space and treats it as (and believes that it is) theirs.
For example, in Bangkok, the Unusual Football Field Project removed debris and concreted gaps in-between houses to create irregular soccer fields for youth in poorer neighbourhoods. In a similar vein, the Resurfaced project in Louisville, transformed a large, unused lot in the poorer, largely immigrant eastern part of the town into “Liberty Field.” They removed debris, put down some turf, and used shipping containers for the goals. They used the left-over material to build benches for the local community to watch, sit, and mingle in the new space. In cities with regular inclement weather or cities that are socially conservative, indoor public spaces take on increased importance. In Mississauga, Toronto a student collective opened a not-for-profit café that provided indoor space for free to the community. The space was so successful it morphed into Studio.89, which re-invests any profits it makes back into the space to accommodate more people and provide new creative outlets for the community. The small, loose idea of a cultural café has emerged as an important indoor community commons for the city. “People getting coffee to hear about local poets; entrepreneurs get to know high school students; comedians meet activists and vice versa, creating considerable cross-pollination between groups.”
These examples demonstrate how the initial investment in spaces can be quite low (and can even be profitable), with high social return and sustainable impact. Public space projects, initiatives, and ideas alone are not going to ameliorate all of society’s ills; however, adding more of those “bits and pieces” to the mix will surely contribute to a sum greater than its parts. As cities around Jordan begin to open up and people begin to reconcile their pre- and post-Covid19 lives, we’ll probably see a lot of Jordanians forging informal public commons and spaces wherever they can. ARK will continue to work with inspiring and driven partners to add some permanent bits and pieces across Jordan for all groups and ages. We’ll keep you updated.