Starbucks, Urban Sprawl, Nationwide Obesity, and the Situationist International

Recently, straddling the fence of a job that requires me to drive 13 miles each way every day and the possibility of having a job I can walk or bike to has made me think about a lot of the ways that we use urban space. Looking at psychogeography, Constant Nieuwenhuis' Unitary Urbanist utopia -New Babylon- and interaction artists highlighted by the writings of Nicolas Bourriaud (Relational Aesthetics, Post-production), I have been considering the overlaps between art, commerce, city planning, and the differences between public and private space usage. Now I add health to that list.

One of the major ideas of the Situationist International (SI, 1957-1972) movement was that as long as situations and environments remain the same, so will the life we lead through them. In order to subvert the imposed infrastructure of cities (i.e. sidewalks, roads, fences, dead ends, parks, etc.), situationists would employ the spirit of the flaneur and the concept of dérive ("drifting"), wandering as they were compelled, seeking the possibilities that may await when their journey became the destination. It has been said that much of the failure of SI Utopian models was due to their over-politicization or lack of execution when bringing their ideals into reality through means of cooperation with architects, city planners, officials, and bureaucracy. Regardless of the lack of material presence, their ideas are valuable points of consideration in light of excessive (in my opinion) interest in passive, encapsulated activity (e.g. TV) and growing problems related to obesity and lack of exercise.

Obesity and TV
According to Consumer Lab, the average American household has at least 100 channels. According to Trash Your TV, the average American watches more than 4 hours per day (28+ hrs. per week).

I just read two articles on Forbes.com about the 50 most sedentary and most obese cities in America. The articles compile data of exercise, the body mass index (BMI) and average TV consumption, among other data sets. One of the most interesting points was their observation that each of the cities they looked at had its own issues that contributed to their problems of obesity (>%60). Lack of access to healthy food, lack of proximity to markets and leisure, lack of public greenscapes, cultural lifestyles (see Louisville - bourbon and tobacco). Maybe its because what's on TV is so great, but... probably not.


Corporate Initiative

Chicago-based non-profit, CEOs for Cities (and many others), are working to promote health in the workplace, and are making efforts to show that the Big Boss does care about your wellbeing and happiness. As horrible as a lot of corporate activity can be, the power that they have in terms of Capital - the mixture of accumulated labor and tools of production - is unprecedented and can be found no where else. This power doesn't have to be overtly domineering, imperialistic, destructively consolidated, or dehumanizing, or simply based on purveying goods at the lowest price to consumer/customers, but could be the point of insertion for a subversive infrastructure that reverses many of the problems of American cities. A recent posting on the CEOs for Cities blog showed the role of Starbuck's in creating hip, comfortable spaces where ever sprawl may roam.

What if we had to work for that comfort? What if the payoff was worth it? Though it may seem counter intuitive to remove the convenience from a store, an anomaly in the context of that comfort could go farther than one would expect. People are very comfortable with the idea of going to a coffee shop (particularly one with a recognizable logo, and a generally homogeneous , nationwide aesthetic). They know what to expect and they seek it out. As much as we like to hide it, we are like mice looking for the cheese. Creating ways to inject city life with a sense of exploration, and surprise invigorates our sense of discovery. Combining this idea with the need for walking and biking friendly cities, we could have secret Starbuck's, tucked away in a forgotten corners, offering discounted prices for those willing to make the extra effort. We could strategically place them to promote the coupling of exercise and leisure. Honestly, I think I can count the number of times I have had a Starbuck's drink on my fingers (maybe with some toes), but I would venture to say that there are people out there who went more than 365 times last year. Let's give them something to talk about.

The popularity of pop-art and similationists, like Jeff Koons, glorified, or as Bourriaud would say, "made sacred" (post-production, pg. 21) the moment of presentation in realm of marketing, advertising and consumption. Unlike the relationship of moth to flame (desire=death), the conditioned patterns of consumption don't have to be a dead-end. Through careful attention to and mediation those moments of interaction between humans and their desired objects, artists can take part in shaping the city, the neighborhood, the store shelf, and the household.

Since we, as a collective American society, lack the incentives to change our situations and our environments, the slight manipulation of these things could serve the idealistic ends of the Situationists: that our lives become art.