So I’m not always the biggest fan of this channel as it can make some very lib takes from time to time, but I found this video very interesting.
I had the first meeting a while ago with the leaders of the Youth Movement I am setting up and we were discussing things that are bothering the youth in my city. One of the things that really popped out is losing the public space (or Third Place as this video calls it) to overpriced housing, privatization or whatever. Antwerp is a city that’s a real concrete jungle with very few parks or green areas, squares where locals can meet or just general free public spaces to relax. Some of you may remember it but a few months ago I protested a hotel owner that turned one of the few public parks, a botanic garden, into an inaccesible place by putting a barrier in front of the entrance. The protest was succesful, the barrier had to be removed and other building permits the guy had were cancelled as well.
Our Youth Movement has now made reclaiming public spaces and expanding public spaces a big priority on our list. It’s truly idiotic when you live in a city but you can’t really go outside to hang out in the public space because there is none.
I’ve lived in a suburb my whole life. Communities are actually real things in real life and not just on the internet?
You forgot a qualifier. "Communities (in suburbs) are actually real things in real life and not just on the internet, if you homogenously match the neighbors and bend the knee, neck, and spine to the karens in the local HOA".
I’ve never lived in a suburb that didn’t have some absolute guero call the cops on me for trying to go on a walk, never mind the geriatrics powerwalking their way down the roads every damn day; so I am fundamentally incapable of feeling warm fuzzies for suburban communities.
I have a rich friend and we visited his house when we were like 17 and he was home alone, had some party with friends going on for the weekend. At some point we were playing football outside and after half an hour the police came by to check on us. Apparently some resident in the street called the cops on us because she found us to be suspicious. People playing football in a street… Suburbs without a community suck ass.