Back to the Agora: Why Shopping Malls and Local Democracy are a Match Made in Heaven
If you think that the Internet is the way to revive democracy then look away now. You probably won’t like this one.
Away from virtual spaces think instead about the importance of physical places for democracy. This approach is inspired by the agora of the ancient Greek polis (the Roman equivalent was the forum). Here are some fun facts about the agora:
- Agora literally means ‘gathering place’ (agoraphobic comes from this and actually means fear of public places not open spaces)
- It was at the centre of many ancient Greek cities including Athens during the height of its democracy
- It was the city’s central square which often had public buildings around the outside and hosted markets as well as political activity
- It was the place to come and deliberate, shop, see entertainment, argue or just be seen
- It was the place where trials could take place, political speeches made and new laws declared
- People who didn't go to the agorae were idiots — this is where the word comes from
From this I'm drawing three important principles of agoric democracy:
First, Politics is not a separate activity. Politics, law and commerce all take place in one physical space, sometimes at the same time. (Compare this with many cities in the UK today where council chambers are housed in building away from city centres and where shopping centres are devoid of political activity). At a personal level people don’t have separate identities as citizens or as consumers so why should these things be catered for separately by society?
Second, Political activity is open and in public. Law making assemblies meet in full view of people going about their normal everyday business. You don’t have to make a special effort to see politics in action — it will just be there in front of you. ‘Speak to my councillor’ would be on the shopping list just below ‘batteries’ and just above ‘socks’.
Second, Interaction and deliberation are face to face. Non verbal communication is very important for human communication and so communication concerned with democracy and decision making should not be conducted without it. Citizenship needs face to face deliberation.
This last point is one that can be argued but there is no doubt that on-line and offline deliberation are different. The importance of non verbal cues in human communication is well known and many would argue that, for this reason, face-t0-face will always be more effective.
From the this perspective, the challenge of democracy is one that needs to be taken up by urban planning and political geography. It means taking a new look at city centres and shopping centres and weaving in spaces for council committees to meet, for local politicians to have their surgeries and for council officials to have their offices.
Political spaces should either be completely open or, at worst, behind glass. Attention should also be paid to the spaces where people can stand on soap boxes and, metaphorical or otherwise, make their arguments, set up campaigning stalls or just meet with other folk to debate the issues of the day.
Most important of all this democracy should happen in the same spaces as shopping, eating and entertainment in the thriving centre of the urban space. As with the ancient agora we need to ensure that local politics takes place in a constant stream of human contact and interaction.
Hence reviving democracy is a challenge of design and planning; not so much designing out crime as designing in democracy.
One footnote to this is that this new (old) vision of the city might actually help with a problem caused by the Internet — namely the pressure placed on city centre retail by on-line shopping. Placing government and democratic institutions back into the heart of our towns and cities might just help to breathe new life into ailing urban centres.
Earlier version published at localopolis.blogspot.co.uk.
