Unreserved spaces at public plazas

[DoctorIknow]

Not sure this is the correct forum, but saw this in the Will Chase Bman update email:

Public plazas are located at Kowtow and 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00. We are holding most of the camping space around these plazas unreserved and available for the general public to occupy and maintain as an experiment in spontaneous urban planning and collaboration.

I immediately thought what fun it would be to observe (not participate in) the land grab right after the 6pm gate opening on Sunday.

And then I thought that however admirable the idea of opening up those spaces, I would place money on the theory that all those spaces will be filled by time the gates open. Or at least with (forbidden) string borders of land being "saved" for whoever.

I'd love to be proven wrong, and give HUGE props, kisses and wishes to those who implemented this incredibly optimistic experiment.

[trilobyte]

I'm moving this over to the camps board, since that's a better fit about camps and city layout for this year.

I don't know that those spaces would be filled up immediately. Even if my camp was not registered, I wouldn't want to camp in a plaza space. I imagine that the same is true for a lot of campers. Others, however, may be all about planting themselves in a neighborhood hub. I'm really excited about the experiment as well, and curious to see how they fill in (not only how long it takes, but what kind of camps end up there.

I'm also really eager to see the continuing evolution of the "Boulevard G" experiment. The double-wide street makes it a natural fit for mutant vehicles to cruise the city, and it intersects not only with Distrikt (a large and popular daytime bar camp) but also the 4:30 and 7:30 plazas. A lot of the space along Boulevard G is unreserved, and doing a walk or pedal along G is a fun thing to do at least once during the week.

It's probably worth pointing out that once the gates open, there is no reserving of space. If you see an empty chunk of reserved space, flag down a placer (or find someone with a radio who can request someone from placement to come on out). They can confirm whether it's truly reserved or not (as you know, some people play shenanigans) and help you out.

[Drawingablank]

I believe they ran this experiment last year as well and the 3:00 plaza at least did not seem too heavily populated when I went by there on Thursday. Actually anything past H street was fairly sparsly populated in the 3:00 to 4:00 region.

Edit: As for boulevard G, I was on G last year and it didn't seem any wider than any other street in the city.

[Ugly Dougly]

I'm not convinced that a lot of the newbies even glance at the map, much less read JRS.

[theCryptofishist]

Yeah they get the introductory TED-video style presentations from their cruise directors.