While reading a book recently (the very much worth reading Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream, by Alissa Quart), I came across the phrase “communal luxury”, and it struck me just how useful this phrase is. It’s impressive how powerful it can be to come upon some words that highlight things noticed before, but not in a way that was understood quite the same way until those words categorized and characterized those otherwise disparate experiences.
The phrase was meant to describe the benefits of having nice things collectively rather than individually; shared luxury of the public sphere as opposed to the private, unshared type usually associated with kings, lords, or rich people. Communal luxury sounds a lot more appealing to me than the kind hidden behind velvet ropes to keep the public out.
The first thing that came to mind when I read this was one of my favorite institutions, the public library. Of course I enjoy having certain books on my private shelf, but having the communal luxury of a well-resourced public library is even better. Only that way can the non-hyper-rich enjoy reading all the latest (and oldest) books that come out, in addition to their collections of films, music, and lots of other great resources. In addition, having it as a shared space fosters community and sociality, as one can meet one’s neighbors there serendipitously when returning a book, or purposely when reserving the meeting space for a community event.
Not only books and other media can work this way, as some communities have established tool libraries. How much nicer to have a high quality electric drill with a complete set of drill bits available for all who live in a neighborhood to use than for each household to have to buy one (then use it once, store it somewhere, maybe for years, until the need for it arises again)! Lots of other things could be organized like this as well, such as all the paraphernalia needed for gardening, yard work, etc. to increase communal luxury with all its inherent benefits. It seems as if there is much that falls under communal luxury that could give us similar advantages over the individualist type.
So many features desired by well-off homeowners in recent times are only desired due to being sold the idea that individual luxury is better. For example, lots of people now put together “media rooms” or “home theaters” with high end audio and video equipment, so they can enjoy the movie theater environment at home. It isn’t a coincidence that the heyday of the palatial, grand movie theaters that even small towns used to have is long gone, replaced by the suburban mall multiplex. But the kind of community and social capital that was built when neighbors regularly joined each other at the local movie palace (or music hall, or theater, or public park band shell, etc.) just doesn’t happen when everyone is in their own private home watching a film, listening to music, etc.
In the US, houses are much bigger than they used to be, in part to contain all these rooms for things that used to be part of our shared communal luxury. Whether it is home gyms that have replaced the local playing fields and community rec centers, or home bars that have replaced the corner and neighborhood pubs and taverns (that aren’t even legal to build under most contemporary single-use zoning codes), or backyard pools instead of the community pool, it is easier (even if lonelier…) for those owning such things to use them, but harder for everyone else, and without the conviviality and sociality of having these things be shared communal goods.
Good public transit with frequent service is another example - the former mayor of Bogata, Colombia, Enrique Penalosa once said “An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport.”
Given the state of most car-centric American cities, it seems luxurious indeed to be able to walk, cycle, or get around by bus, streetcar, or train easily, with the kind of lively street scenes of sidewalk cafés, and people of all ages out and about that aren’t possible in car-dominated cities.
I remember during a bike trip in Germany a couple decades ago noticing how beautiful all the faćades of houses were in the towns we cycled through and in which we stayed. It seemed almost everyone had window boxes of beautiful flowers (matching the lovely flower baskets hanging from street lamps) on their house front. The back yards I saw were nothing special - this struck me as the opposite of the American houses with which I was most familiar that had sometimes opulent back yards, with less attention given to how it enhanced (or not) the beauty of the street itself (often the most prominent feature facing the street is the garage). Looking back, armed with this new phrase, I can understand more clearly that what I was seeing then was the greater value of communal luxury over private, individual luxury. It makes sense that we in the US would think more in terms of individual than communal luxury - read the Bootstrapped book for the history of how we have been sold this story pretty pervasively for centuries (and given our media’s economic structure as consumer-advertising-dependent, virtually all television and advertising sells this ideology either explicitly or as its underlying framework).
The interesting thing to me is that the communal type of luxury adds to everyone’s individual enjoyment of life, while the private type seems to come at some hidden costs - of wastefulness, environmental harm, paying of less attention to what we share and can benefit us all, etc. So it seems to me that it would be a good thing to use this phrase more, and so get more people to use it so we won’t ignore these otherwise hidden costs of favoring solitary over communal luxury, and maybe get more people to recognize how much we all stand to gain from a better public realm with communal luxury for all to enjoy.