Site Report 3, Part A and B. Lew, Kelly

Eisenberg stated, “is it possible to imagine cities with a culture of participatory sharing in which public space is utilized to literally serve the public?” (Fallen Fruit, p. 228), which I believe that in a perfect world people would respect one another. It would more of natural reaction to help someone, but we live in the society of the have and the have nots. Some people were lucky in enough in our society to be born into the right family and the right place to have a well off life while others where born into families that have to face hardship along with being stopped just because of their color of their skin as Cahill text mentions. If society could look past race and income then life would be simple, but as human beings we are individuals who are trying to be better than the person next us or happy where we are.

If we were able to follow Eisenberg’s outline to be more of sharing than claiming as his or her then I think that it would loose the sense of value. Eisenberg demonstrates, “TreePeople Los Angeles had an existing program, Fruit Tree Giveaways, which placed free trees in under-served neighborhoods… we changed the term “giveaway” to “adoption.” The new term carries the implication of an obligation, first to the young tree that requires care to establish itself, but secondarily to the neighborhood (Fallen Fruit, p. 229-230).” By changing the verbiage of free to adoption it gave it a value of that to care for the young tree. When the verbiage of free was used, people would just take it and not give as much care, but when the word usage of ‘adoption’ was used it seemed to make people think and provide more for the young tree. We have to find a ways to create regulations to give people a sense of responsibility without ownership. Our mentality of that it is not our property is not my responsibility to maintain it. Take for instance the public subway stations. It is a public space and we as every day riders should take some responsibility to maintain it; however, if we spill something or drop something the phrase ‘oops my bad’ and we walk away. Now occasionally there would be a person to clean up after themselves because it shows how they are as person and feel responsible to clean up after themselves. We as a society would have work on our morals and our self worth before we are able to take on the responsibility of maintaining a pubic space.