Free coffee troubles: harming the interests of private space owners

Liu Yuanju

In a narrow sense, public space refers to the outdoor space for the public use of urban residents' daily life and social life. Generally include streets, squares, community outdoor venues, parks, sports venues and so on. Sometimes based on competitive considerations, these spaces will have exclusive measures such as paying fees and buying tickets, but as long as they buy tickets, anyone has the right to enter the public space.

In modern commercial society, there is a similar "public space", but it is actually an area of private space. For example, a store is a typical private space similar to a public space: everyone can enter and play without shopping, but activities against the will of the store owner will be stopped. The typical difference between public space and private space can be further explained by the comparison between "a bench in a street garden" and "a seat in a street cafe". In the former, people do not have to spend, there is no time limit, they are allowed to bring their own food and drinks, and there are no restrictions on clothing, while in the latter, people have to consume, have time restrictions, refuse to bring their own drinks, and may also be required to dress neatly.

With the widening and closure of the road and the acceleration of traffic flow, the road not only divides the organic living area into smaller, but also loses the function of residents' activities. the public space that used to exist in Shanghai has been disappearing. On the other hand, with the development of economy, parks and green spaces have increased, large-scale squares have appeared, and urban public spaces have expanded, but city squares are more landscape public spaces than citizenized and communicative public spaces, and the corresponding types of mass activities have limitations. People's social demand for public space turns to private space, showing the characteristics of publicity of private space.

On the one hand, this is a spontaneous behavior of the market. Because residents' communicative activities are often accompanied by commercial consumption behavior. In the commercial private space, because of the clear property rights, the operators of private space benefit from providing people with high-grade social space. With the rise of people's income level, the higher-level services provided by these spaces are more and more recognized by consumers, such as hotel rental conference halls, KTV halls, restaurants and so on. Even primary school students like to order French fries and cola at KFC after school and get together to chat and do homework. At the same time, with the rise of real estate, the private space shared by residents in the community is often used to complete the role of public social space. On the other hand, this kind of publicity of private space is also the initiative of the government, which allocates the public space to commercial areas or institutions in municipal planning.

Private space plays the role of public space, which will bring benefits to real operators, while for some non-specialized venues, undertaking the function of public space will harm the interests of private space owners. For example, in McDonald's or KFC, a cup of Coke, a little snack, air conditioning in summer and heating in winter are very cozy. However, in the peak period, this kind of occupation for a long time harms the interests of operators.

The most typical example is the blind date army that Ikea faces. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, restaurants at IKEA Mall in Xuhui District of Shanghai are occupied by a group of middle-aged and elderly people aged between 45 and 65 who are not customers who come to shop and eat, according to the Wall Street Journal. Their aim is to find new love. Not only that, they also enjoy the free coffee provided by the store, but eat their own box lunch. When the number reached 700, it not only consumed 500 free coffee cups of Ikea, but also occupied 80% of the seats, making it impossible for shoppers to eat. Every Tuesday, Ikea restaurant business fell by 20%, consuming six cases of coffee cream and sugar. Even on weekends and holidays, the consumption is only two cases.

For the question of why not go to other places, the answer of these aunts and uncles is that "Ikea has style". Obviously, the clean and comfortable, elegantly decorated environment and free coffee are obviously more stylish than park benches. But sitting in a coffee shop for hours and leaving melon peel rubbish makes them less and less popular with Ikea. Ikea has designated a free coffee area to limit the scope of their activities and specially posted "notice letters" in the hope of dissuading this group, but with little success.

The demand for public space is the basic demand of modern citizens, which comes from the social group of people. However, like Masno's level of demand, there are levels of demand for public space. With the development of economy, people have higher requirements for the public space of social activities, which is no longer park benches and lawns. Whether it is to go to Ikea or KFC, the purpose is not only a social space or reading, but also a more decent and comfortable public space.

For this phenomenon that private space undertakes the obligation of public space, there is a bad tendency in public opinion to find a proper reason for the existence, and infringe upon the property rights of enterprises under the banner of the interests of the majority of people. The usual reason is that companies can get reputation and potential customers, but this is just wishful thinking. If KFC and McDonald's are tolerant of young people who occupy seats with a glass of coke for a long time, or even open all night to cultivate the spending habits of young consumers, Ikea is dealing with older people who have almost ended their furniture consumption. Whether it is reputation or potential customers, it is inefficient to maintain a tolerant attitude, and the only reason for them to endure is that the formed habits will inevitably have a negative impact on their fierce response. However, this attitude is helpless and irresponsible for providing better public space.

Human nature is complex and interesting, and even the elderly will still pursue an elegant and exquisite environment, just like young people. Make friends when there is free coffee, chat when there is a seat, and the elderly rely on the elderly to sell the elderly more directly, pushing their compromise to the environment to the extreme. This black humor of taking advantage of petty gain makes people laugh, but it is also uncomfortable, which is not a normal phenomenon for city managers and should be ashamed of it.

On the face of it, the elderly, a group of people with relatively low consumption levels, go for free coffee and the environment. This demand for petty bargains is unreasonable, but the essence of their needs is not. In a first-tier city like Shanghai, the biggest cost of any public and private space, including such a "decent public place", lies in the cost of land. Take Ikea as an example, how much does a cup of coffee cost? Including refills, it's only four or five yuan. How much can the daily depreciation of decoration and buildings be? In fact, it is not expensive, what is expensive lies in the land price in the downtown area of Xujiahui where IKEA is located. For the elderly, if there are private places that can meet their needs, if in the city, due to the high land price, coupled with operating profits, and the price of a package of services, including beverages, generally speaking, 30 yuan a cup of coffee is the lower-middle price in Shanghai. But this does not mean that they cannot afford the cost of coffee itself. What they cannot afford is the land price, but the citizens are the owners of the city, and the elderly have also devoted their youth to the city.

Public space itself is a quasi-public good, because its property right belongs to the state, for residents, the use of public space is often excessive, while the main body exercising management power on behalf of the state is lack of incentive, and if there is no benefit, it will be pushed. Therefore, the form of public space and its ancillary public service is single and the quality is low. If we use the way of privatizing public space, delimiting part of public land for private operation, it will not only improve the efficiency of public space, but also improve the service quality of public space. With land as an in-kind subsidy, the cost of private operators in public space will be greatly reduced. Of course, such places with government in-kind subsidies should still be avoided from being abused, and through operational methods such as time division, for-profit and non-profit operations can be put on working days and Sundays, respectively. After all, Ikea faces blind dates on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

(the writer is a project researcher of Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law)

(responsible Editor: Leo)