Hostile architecture reinforces hostility

transcript [text overlaid on several pictures of benches and outside windowsills. the benches have bars, or gaps to prevent someone from sleeping on them.

text reads "Ban anti-homeless arctithecture"]

sauce: https://mastodon.social/@AnarchistArt/112901196516297447

Hostile architecture is among the symptoms of the hostile modern city, where neighbours never say hi, and people die on the streets as people walk passivly by.

Anarchism @lemmy.blahaj.zone

Ranger @lemmy.blahaj.zone

6mo ago

Be hostile to hostile architecture

247 33

37 comments

This seems a bit oversimplified. Yes the homeless need a place, and that place should be built and funded. But at least in most of the places I've lived there are certain bus stops and parks that are not usable as they are full of homeless and addicts sleeping on all the benches and leaving needles all over (putting these together because this close to methodone clinics many homeless are addicts). It's unsafe for children (or adults for that matter) to use the parks, nobody can sit at the bus stops and at some stops there's such a crowd of homeless that people generally avoid them altogether. Would these measures from the picture help? No chance, because the anti homeless benches they've built are too small for the pregnant and too uncomfortable for injured and elderly so they've made it useless to everyone. I'm sure there's a reasonable solution where everyone wins, and I'm sure I'll never see it
- Certainly "ban hostile architecture" is oversimplified in that it leaves room for cities to continue forcing unhoused folks to sleep on the streets, but it has a better ring than "ban hostile architecture and provide stable and safe housing to everyone."
  I feel like the later part should be assumed by the fact that leftists have been calling for housing the unhoused for many decades. On the other hand hostile architecture is (to my knowledge) a newer phenomenon that needs to be criticized in it's own right.
  
  "the solution to any large scale problem must always fit on a bumper sticker"
- You just stated that the anti-homeless architecture is bad for housed people too. So when it comes to anti-homeless architecture, it's not oversimplified to just get rid of it. It helps no one and just causes suffering.

It's like pigeon protectors... except for humans. Sad.
- And I feel sad about most pigeon ~~protectors~~ spikes too.
  Why design such a place in nature (buildings), that contact of the smallest bit of nature requires extra maintenance or add-ons.
  
  You feel bad for pigeon spikes and are asking why things that are built require maintenance or additions due to natural causes..? That seems patently obvious to me. I have no idea what you're talking about.

That should also include locked doors.
It should be illegal to hoard space in McMansions for luxuries such as a home gym/home theatre/separate dining room and breakfast nook/3-car garage while the Unhoused scramble for shelter.
- I agree that massive mansions are wasteful and stupid but uh, I don't think anyone would agree that we should ban locking our doors
- Agreed - ideally we'd cut right to the source of the problem and ban investment ownership of housing, or at least put a massive progressive tax on owning any dwellings that you don't personally live in. Then use that tax to fund public/social housing developments (like Vienna?)

So...it's okay if someone is sleeping on the benches at the bus stop, making it harder for elderly, pregnant, or disabled people to use essential public transportation services?
- Make more benches. Or, better yet, give the homeless a place to live. Don't blame them for problems they can't control
  
  problems they can't control
  Well, now that's an assumption.
- I mean at least here they just take away the benches so the elderly, pregnant and disabled AND the homeless get nothing.
- How incredibly selfish do you need to be to think that not being inconvenienced for 5 minutes while you wait for a bus to your cozy home justifies turning public resting spots into torture devices to make sure those who have nothing at all can't even lie down?
  The entitlement and lack of empathy is absolutely mind-blowing. Not to mention how you wrapped it all up as a false dilemma and then act as though you're doing it all for the elderly and disabled. I guess the homeless people just aren't disadvantaged enough.
  Honestly, at what point do you go "well the issue is real, but when it comes to "solutions", let's draw the line here"? These measures should be scoffed, ridiculed, and anyone suggesting them as a solution be forced to live on the street for 6 months, and for the remainder of whatever career they have left have a cut of their salary spent on getting people off the street.
  These contraptions, after all, are not there so uncle Bob and pregnant Priscilla can have a rest, they are there as a cheap, short-sighted measure to hide a problem nobody is interested in solving. They're a hackjob by politicians to force those already in the gutter even deeper into misery so you don't have to endure looking at them, cause you know, you might actually start demanding a real solution if you are reminded of it every day.
  
  I take it you are inviting as many homeless people into your home as it can fit each night?
  
  You're right and I'm glad you said it.
- And what exactly, oh grand liberal genius, is a society designed to produce homeless people supposed to do about it?
- The vast majority of homeless on the street are disabled. I have actually never met a homeless person (on the street, not couch surfing) who wasn't disabled, but stastically they apparently exist. When people weaponize disability rights to harm homeless, they are just using disability rights against the disabled.
  Also, considering what the government sees accomodation and disability actually as - a way to help disabled people literally live and survive here. Eg a wheelchair user needs a wheelchair to live. But everyone has a 'disability' that needs shelter, food, and water to live - yet we don't guarantee those.

The one on the lower left seems less hostile and more just stupid. Unless the goal is to prevent the doors being rammed by shopping carts or allowing wheelchair access.
- The one I've seen retract.They come up in the evening. You can still walk through them if needed, but, yes, they make shopping carts and wheelchairs unusable when they are active, but they're often in apartment entrance and other places that don't use shopping carts.
- That's a retail storefront that's got no tenant in it.

Do you want squatters? This is how you get squatters. Make it uncomfortable and unsafe to be outside, and it becomes less risky in comparison to breaking in somewhere and just living there. Plus, we should be addressing the root causes of homelessness (such as landlords) rather than trying to just push homeless people somewhere else.
- what is a squatter?
  someone that lives in a unused house?
  the problem there is that a house stands unused, not the people needing a roof over their head.
  also, I am really confused do you think that I'm for these spikes and shit? this is clearly meant to ban the spikes and stuff used to further dehumanize homeless
  
  Yeah, someone who lives in an empty home. And nope, I don't think you're for these spikes, I meant "yes, removing these would be good, and we should also address the underlying causes of homelessness". My apologies, I've just been dealing with city meetings where officials are trying to do anything but address the core causes, and I've been frustrated with that and it spilled over.
- The rich do want squatters, because squatting means more ~~slaves~~ prisoners.

37 comments