Just recently I read a book called “How to Be a Citizen” by C. L. Skach (Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) 2024 ISBN 978 1 5266 5520 2). As the blurb on the back of the book says - “C. L. Skach always believed in the strength of law – she spent her career writing constitutions to help fix society. But as she sat alone in a sandbagged trailer in Bagdad after a rocket attack, she admitted she had been denying for years: a good society comes from leaning less on formal rules, and more on each other.”
In the book she goes on to explain six ideas that can help us to build small societies of our own and one of those ideas, also the title of chapter four of the book, is what I pirated to use as the title of this article: “Hang out in a piazza, repeatedly”.
To me this was a new idea, and while I had been doing it in one form or another for years, I had not recognised it as such. Having had it now pointed out to me, I wanted to have a look into what this meant, and I wanted to do more of it. This is what I came up with.
So, what is a piazza?
The word piazza traces its roots back to the 1580s in Italy, where it was used to describe an open public square or marketplace. It is the Italian variant of the Spanish plaza, basically an open space where we can meet up with friends, neighbours and others in our area.
While piazzas existed as the centre of life in the towns in years gone by, they still exist in several forms today. Here are two that I have personal experience with and one that I have observed in our local area, not far from our home.
The Food Court
We have a small shopping centre about ten minutes’ walk from our house, we were lucky in that it did not exist when we originally bought the house, but was opened a few years after we moved in. It was then upgraded and increased in size in the early 1990s and was expanded again in 2008 when the 2400m2 food court was installed. It is that food court which I am primarily concerned with in this part of the article.
In the last eighteen years I have watched the development of several groups of varying sizes that meet in the food court (piazza). They don’t seem to consume much, except perhaps a coffee or two from the purveyors of such treats within and outside the food court but meet for the social interaction. The groups vary in size from two or three individuals to a dozen or more, or, like my mate Sam, they may be a single person that sits at a table and waits for people they know to come through and sit with them for a chat. Sam and I were just nodding acquaintances until I chose one day to sit with him for a chat.
Some groups are mixed, but quite a few seem to be just men’s or just women’s groups. I am a part of one of these groups, the Grumpy Old Men who are from our local church and have been meeting there on a Thursday morning for almost ten years. Attendance varies from week to week, some have dropped out, some have passed on, but the Grumpys are still here! (For more detail on the Grumpys, click here.)
All manner of people use the food court as their piazza, but from my observations it appears the majority of members are of the more mature, and retired age bracket but then being retired myself I tend to be there during the day when the members of this demographic are able to meet, while those who are working, work!. I do believe that this is important, because this demographic is one that can quite easily become isolated in the post-work world. I myself have struggled with this issue, going from contact with multiple people daily while I was working, to staying mostly at home and only having contact with Linda, and of course the chooks!
The Permaculture Meeting
This one is a little different in that there is an entry fee, albeit a very reasonable one, but permaculture groups (at least the ones I have been associated with) are very inclusive. My main permaculture group is Permaculture Sydney West, although I have had the honour of giving talks regularly to other permaculture groups in the Sydney and central coast area.
On numerous occasions I have had new members say to me that they have found their tribe, and that is always a gratifying thing to hear, that we are meeting a need for them. Our piazza is the main monthly meeting, conducted on the first Monday of the month. This is where people share home grown food, ideas, and materials that are still useful but they no longer require (the ‘Recycle Roundabout) as well as having access to an extensive permaculture library and a speaker or speakers on Permaculture related subjects.
Sharing lunch after a blitz
Outside the monthly meeting there are opportunities to meet up and practice skills from other members be it at meetings of the Seedsavers group, or by attending a ‘Living Skills’ workshop at a member’s home where they share skills such as repair and maintenance, high efficiency irrigation, cooking or preserving skills. It is also possible to attend garden ‘permablitzes’ where members get to work with others to help the member who is the property owner while learning new permaculture skills by doing them.
The Skate Park
In 2011 Penrith Council installed the St Clair Skate Facility or Skate Park and while I don’t have personal experience of it, in fact if I did it would probably result in some serious injury to myself and serious hilarity for other users, I have noted its popularity over the years. It is a great place for kids and teenagers to come together, get some exercise and hang out. There is clearly a different demographic here to the ones that use the food court as their piazza.
The Point
So, what is the point of this rant of mine?
There are so many things that separate us in this modern world. Our phones, our computers, our TVs and their endless screening services (gone are the days of my childhood when the TV shut down late at night). We can stay cloistered in our homes, oblivious to our neighbours and kept endlessly entertained by our electronic equipment. The electronic equipment, however, is no substitute for human contact. The world is becoming increasingly fragmented, and hazardous. Getting to know our neighbours, even if they are some distance away, can be facilitated by interacting with them in our local piazza. Building a relationship with others means that we can be there for them if they need us, if only for a chat that will ease the burden of isolation and loneliness, and they can be there for us. All this adds to our resilience in times of trouble, and even if there is no trouble, it can be lots of fun!
My final questions for you are: where is your piazza? How often do you use it?
