textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp000171.txt

Toward a Collective Space in Bloomington
(draft)

Introduction.

	The general idea is that such a space would serve to facilitate the
development of collective resources that will empower town residents
to address community problems at an intimate level.
	The Community Study alluded to is an upcoming project of some
individuals from nearby Indiana University's history department.  It
will focus mainly on the political economy of Bloomington;  who
owns what,  who are the chief employers,  what geographic areas are
associated with what income groups,  what and where are the boundaries
and epicenters of neighborhoods,  etc.  It is thought that the Study will
bring guidance to various activist groups that operate here,  and to
projects such as a collective space.
	The exact purpose,  need for,  and feasibility of such a space
here in town has yet to be established.  The feasibility of the idea
is dependent in part on the existence of some constant group of
individuals committed to residing in the area for a period of some
years.  At present,  no such group is considered to exist.


Where Such a Space Might Be.

	
	The day after Thanksgiving I took a walk in Bloomington on
what I call the Central West Side;  the area west of Rogers street,
bounded by 2nd and 9th,  and going all the way to the weeds at the
edge of town.		
	I scoured every street and cross-street to see what suitable
quarters there might be for a collective space.  Storefronts are few,  and
concentrated on 5th street.  A 5th street location would maximize
visibility through exposure to traffic,  but the traffic itself might
be a nuisance after a while.  The high traffic on 2nd makes it almost
totally unsatisfactory.  3rd and 4th streets west of Rogers are a
little obscure,  and they are on hills as well.  A collective space should
give the impression that it is there for the user,  not that it forces
the user to come to it.  
	Walking along 9th street,  I could see the roof of the Showers
building.  It's to be converted into some kind of a community or civic
center.  There is a West Side Community Center on 7th street,  built
during the Roosevelt administration.  Also,  a number of churches are
in the area.  What are these places like?  Who goes there?  What do
they do with respect to the various communities of the West Side?
	We need to know so that we can decide what position to
take with respect to these institutions that already  occupy space in
public life.  We can find out easily enough;  probably it will figure
in the Community Study somehow.
	Except for the West Side Community Center,  I don't really
like the idea of locating a space on 7th,  8th,  or 9th streets
because of the hill that they're on.  Maybe this is petty and maybe
not.  But they are also located a fair distance from the nearest
through street in the area,  which is 5th.
	6th street is about as accessible as 5th,  but with no storefronts
to speak of.  Perhaps that's not such a problem though;  the Runcible
Spoon does just fine without a storefront and I suppose one could be
made in a pinch anyway.  6th is also flat for much of its length.  
	If I were to put a space in the Central West Side just for the
purposes of that area,  it would be on 6th street.  Thinking more
broadly,  all of Bloomington should be characterized and explored
roughly in the terms outlined above.  Each sector would have its most
suitable location,  judging by various factors.  Putting all this
together,  it may be that the ideal site for a collective space
servicing the West Side as a whole would be in the Central part,
but somewhere other than 6th street.  Characterizing the sector of
Bloomington society that a collective space might serve will be one of
the goals of the Community Study,  and hopefully ideas for the
location of the space will come forth from that as well.


What the Relation to the Outside Might be Like.


	This is up for grabs at the moment.  Too little is known about
the existing community organs to really say.  How much confrontation
is good?  Who should we work with?  What enemies can we afford to
make?  Some method for bringing all this to light is needed.  Back to
the Community Study again.
	One thing I would recommend right away,  though,  is that
whatever the relationships to the outside are,  they be made through
intimate media rather than mass media.  Intimate media are things like
word-of-mouth,  flyers,  newsletters,  simple oration,  contact
through projects,  maybe a community radio or community cable
production,  etc.  I put the radio and tv items into intimate media
because of the control that we would likely get over the production
process.  This to me is what constitutes intimate as opposed to mass
media;  the tailoring that can be brought to the information.  Mass media
effectively puts the consumer of information in control,  since it's
supposed to be written for everybody.  Intimate media also allows for
mistakes to be corrected either before or shortly after they are
propagated,  since people are still listening.  If you get made out as
a fool by the mass media,  the attention of the consumer is on
something else by the time you react.
	Also,  seeking to communicate through a mass medium is
eventually subversive of grass-roots values.  In certain respects,
social structures resemble the structures people use to communicate.
If the idea is to foster a networked participatory democracy,  then
our ways of speaking to each other and to the world will have to be
patterned the same way.


What the Inside Might be Like.


	It should not be a grotesque and incomprehensible departure
from the outside world.  The romantic image of the Berlin squat will
not do in a small Indiana town.  Squats are essentially products of
economically dead regions.  This is why they are found in large cities.
	Probably what would go over best is something like an old
general store,  which apart from being a place of business was a center for the
community in its own right.  Woodburning stove,  a few rocking chairs,
game of checkers left unfinished on an overturned barrel,  people
spending all day sitting around jawing about politics and whatnot.
Southern Indiana is much more likely to believe this is for real.
	Tempting though it may be,  I would advise
against having a computer at first.  For one thing,  the amount of
computer resources present in Bloomington makes the investment
essentially  unjustifiable.  For another,  using computers is fine as
long as it doesn't force you to design redundancy,  and thus
reliability,  out of the organization.  Not being able to communicate
if your email breaks down is an easily visible scenario.  Better to
force the space to develop US mail,  telephone,  and courier channels
before adding a computer,  if indeed it's a good idea at all.
	At the Peace Center,  one problem in search of a policy was
how people who just happened to walk in off the street should be
handled.  What kind of an experience do we want them to have?  Some
workers would introduce themselves and give the person a little tour,
others would just eye visitors from a distance to make sure they
weren't ripping the place off.  Rosebud Commons in Portland does not
have an open-door policy at all.    


Where the Money for All This will Come From.


Income

	First off let's not be squeamish about selling things.  As long as 
nobody takes money home for themselves out of what gets sold for the place 
nobody is being exploited, especially if everybody agrees that labor expended
is for the general benefit of the project.  If this really bothers you go read
Kapital.  All three volumes.
	If stuff is to be sold,  we must ensure that it does not take too 
much time to order,  set up,  handle,  etc. ie we cannot become such expert
merchandisers that we can't really run the space.  In general,  we
should focus on things of which a person might say,  'oh,  I could run down
to the space and get that' instead of going to a store outside the 
neighborhood.  Coffee is the classic sort of service to offer this way,  but
I'm going to throw in some odd alternatives that I have never seen
anyone suggest before.
	Actually most things I suggest here are some form of selling.  There's
a bit further on about funding by simple donation,  which I have mixed feelings
about.
	
	
=> Cafe-type stuff	
		
	The coffee service that was set up at the Peace and Justice
Center in Bloomington pulled in roughly $100 a week,  and that
entailed management problems too.  This was about half the necessary
rent.  	
	There is no reason that any one-horse coffee service can't
make a standard cup of joe of the same quality as the finest place in
town.  Most just don't try.  Supplementing this we could take
consignments for local producers,  for example in baked goods.

=> Market Gardening
	
	I once worked for an organic grower who had a total of four acres
under crop,  and he grossed about $40 000 dollars a year from it,  selling some
to restaurants,  but most to a local food store and at the Farmers' Market 
held every Saturday from May until October.
	Obviouly we can't duplicate that directly, it's very labor intensive;
but we can make a few bucks pushing veggies and maybe grow some for the 
Community Kitchen besides.

=> Hardware counter

	For this what I have in mind is stuff like weatherproofing
materials,  plastic for windows in the wintertime,  maybe the odd box
of screws or nails,  stuff to do light plumbing with,  etc.  Auto
supply might fit into this scheme too,  motor oil,  wiper blades,
de-icer,  things people might decide to buy on short notice.
	More ambitiously, sell kits for solar retrofits or other
energy-saving articles like high-efficiency plumbing and lighting devices.  

=> Benefit concerts
	
	Once again,  it's not necessary to have benefits at the space
itself,  especially if it's located in a residential neighborhood.
Benefit stuff might be farmed out as joint projects with Rhino's, 
the Basement Scene,  or whoever else feels like being cooperative with us.
	How to separate people from their money on the way in the door
became a grave issue at the Peace Center.  Some wanted to have a
definite cover charge,  some wanted to make it clear that any money
given was to be considered a donation and anybody could come in
whether they gave money or not.  My personal suggestion was that
instead of printing flyers that said '$3 cover' or '$3 donation',
just make flyers that say '$3'.  This leaves it open to interpretation
on the spot;  whoever's working the door can finesse around
and wring money from those that have it while giving a break to those
who don't.   But for whatever reason,  that idea did not go over.

=> Propaganda stuff like pamphlets,  tshirts, etc.
		
	A fellow I worked for one summer told me about his friend
who had several tons of horse manure and wanted to give it away for
compost,  so he put up a notice at a local store to the effect that he would
deliver it for free.  The store owner told him that if he didn't
charge at least $12 a ton,  he'd never get rid of the stuff.
	It's often easier to get people to take something if they have
to pay for it,  even a tiny amount.  People are just often suspicious
of what's free.  
	Look at old copies of revolutionary or subversive pamphlets
from the last century.  Many are marked Ten Cents or Five Cents,
which was a lot more then than it is today.  Hitting people up for nickels
and dimes won't keep the doors open by itself but it might show people we
take what we make seriously enough to ask some money for it.
	One of the best projects to ever come out of the Peace Center was a 
little zine called BloomingPeace.  (ironically,  the zine was also the least
dependent on the Center as a facility) For a while the idea of hawking it on 
streetcorners was up for grabs,  but it seems that the "give away anything 
portable" faction won out and eventually BloomingPeace was stamped -FREE-,  
ruining any possible effort to sell it.	

=> Bookstore

	This would do the business of a regular bookseller,  buying
any old books at low prices and marking them up.  It would not have
the contacts or reputation to keep up with the regular businesses that
speculate in books,  but it could improve the cash flow somewhat.

=> Direct Donation/Grants

	The Peace and Justice Center had an easy source of money from
a wealthy benefactor.  That dependency meant that the Center's
own abilities to generate funds never developed to the extent they
should have.  If many people had each pitched in little amounts,  the
attitude problem about funding could have been avoided.	 Researching
the financial systems of small rural churches might give some clues as
to how voluntary association can support a collective space with a
minimum of outside assistance.

	Dependency is not necessarily bad;  but it's important to
choose what it is we depend on.  Some people feel no qualms about
taking money from the state in the form of grants;  I am not strictly
opposed to it,  but I think it's ultimately debilitating.  An
anti-authoritarian society would have to have anti-authoritarian means
of forming capital;  the development of these means would be retarded
by relying on the state for capital.  Can a society that takes money
from the state afford to subvert the state?  Also,  even though state
money is ultimately the people's money,  how do the people handle the issue of
expropriating money from themselves?  Using state money in the name of
the people,  on the grounds that it's "our wealth" is the thin edge of
a thick wedge.  I'm told that most anarchists eventually sell out to
some form of state socialism.  We should be aware of how that
process may occur.
	We need to study the problem of capital formation in general
and experiment with some anti-authoritarian solutions.   How would
a society without a state assemble and allocate resources to projects
for the common good?  This happens to be one of the state's more
common excuses for itself and it's one that needs more thought than
most people give it.
	
Outlay

	Secondly we need to eat away at the funding issue from the
other side.  Organizations,  of whatever sort,  grow by a process of
making replacements for things that they formerly got from the outside
world.  The last section was about replacing outside money with
internal funding.  This section is about finding alternatives to
spending the money once we have some.  There's not much to say right
off but I'm sure this list would fill out quickly once an actual space
starts and bills start rolling in.
	
=> Buy a building to avoid rent.

	This topic is covered in good detail by any How-To Manual for
slimeball land speculators.  Having the space combined with one or
more residences may make it easier.  

=> Find ways to mitigate or avoid utility bills.

	Putting in efficient heating,  plumbing and lighting systems
will not only lower costs in the long run,  it will serve as a
demonstration project to the rest of the community.  The major export
from the space should be change,  and change is facilitated in part by example.