Experience economy spaces simulate belonging but remove the conditions that make belonging durable. A hotel lobby used to let people sit without explaining themselves.
Someone might be waiting for something, avoiding the weather, killing time before a meeting, or passing through with no clear purpose, which was usually me. The room belonged to the hotel, but it still allowed unplanned contact with the city. It was a commercial room that tolerated uses beyond transaction, back when ambiguity did not need to be designed or defended. It was normal.
The experience economy has spent decades retraining our sense of what public space is for. It reduces ambiguity and tells us where and how to spend our time.
