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Talking to a retired town planner over coffee made me rethink how we do park benches around here
He said something about how the bench spacing in our local park was designed to keep homeless people from lying down, not for actual sitting. That hit me because I realized the gaps are all wrong for families or old folks to rest. Anyone else noticed their town's public furniture is designed more to push people away than help them?
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logan5251mo ago
Yeah, check if the armrests are purposely short too, that's a dead giveaway for hostile design.
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samflores1mo ago
Check the armrests and bench lengths next time you're there, @logan525 mentioned the short armrests and that's spot on. I measured the ones in our downtown plaza once and they were like 18 inches between armrests, way too short for anyone to stretch out but perfect for stopping sleep. The gaps between benches in our main park are exactly 12 feet apart too, which my buddy who's a carpenter said is too tight for a family to sit together but too wide for an old person to rest between. I started paying attention after that and now I see it everywhere, even in bus stop shelters with those slanted seats.
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nancyg141mo ago
That "gaps are all wrong" part got me too, Nancy. I noticed the same thing at our local park after someone pointed it out. The benches are spaced so far apart that my elderly mom can't make it from one to the next without stopping, but there's nothing in between to lean on. It makes me mad because they probably spent good money on those benches and still managed to make them useless for most of us.
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