"Democracies Need Physical Spaces" ?/ Midterm Revision

As I mentioned in my previous post, the purpose of this blog has somewhat changed.  I originally had set out to explore public places in Los Angeles because it became apparent to me that I had (and still have) very little physical interaction with the outside world, that is, the world outside my car, my home, the store, school, etc. And in the process of trying to discover the outside world, I have largely been disappointing.  I have yet to experience any rel interaction with strangers.  This is in part due to the types of outdoor activities I've attended (Cinespia's outdoor screening series, Glow) where there has always been a main attraction.  People go to see the movie screening or the art, not the people. Since then, I have become interested in another public space: the internet, which is a digital rather than physical "space" (is there such thing as space when speaking in digital terms?)

I just finished reading an interesting blog post from Dirt about the need for physical public spaces in urban cities (ie: parks) to enable "'non-structured and non-goal-orientated' interactions among many kinds of people. To cite the blog which cites Sarah Williams Goldenhagen

“[America[]has become more an archipelago than a nation, increasi
ngly balkanized into ethnic, class, faith, and interest groups whose members rarely interact meaningfully with people whose affiliations they do not in large measure share.”

And this balkanization has essentially destroyed the public realm and this destruction has been furthered by the internet because internet communities are so specific (for example this very blog.)  We are becoming more and more filtered by our specific interests meaning there is less crossover and communication between different interest groups.

This is a view that I in particular am aligned with.  I do not see the internet as one single community, but rather millions of specialized communities within.  This is not necessarily a negative outcome of the internet, but claims I have been hearing for a good part of my life about how the internet allows for the democratization of information and uninhibited sharing of ideas are questionable.  Similarly, I question the effectiveness of actual physical spaces truly allowing for real interactions among a broad spectrum of participants from different backgrounds and different interests.  Goldenhagen's claim for physical public spaces such as parks being necesary for democrary isn't some sort of metaphor...she actually claims that parks, for example Central Park in New York City,   Goldenhagen describes the rchitect of Central Park Olmstead's vision:

“Olmsted understood that the great urban park is more than a place for people to appreciate the structure of tulips and feel the grass beneath their feet; and more even than a place where different sorts of people could come at any time for free."

 I don't see the democracy here... in fact, parks are divided up according to interests: there are areas to picnic, sunbath, play, even ice skate.  Those sound like interest groups to me...  Ok, that is a shallow argument but Goldenhagen's paper and the Dirt blogpost are a good starting point for my investigation which is aimed (vaguely) at physical public spaces v. digital public spaces, mostly directed at civic engagement.  I apologize for this somewhat nebulous/weird post but I want this to be the (second) jumping off point for the direction this blog will take.