A Lack of Space

By FCS | August 13, 2018

It all started with a grocery shopping trip. Upon leaving the store, I had forgotten where I’d parked my car. Again. This seems to happen most often when it is raining or quite hot, and it was a sweltering August day. As I made my way down the third aisle to find my extremely common gray Altima, I finally saw my car in the next aisle over.

Forgetting the location of my car in parking lots has been part of my life since I started shopping for myself. Let’s just say it has been a long time and I used to just swerve the cart in between vehicles and proceed to my car. Recently I noticed the lack of space between vehicles. I know this isn’t new. Vehicles seem to grow with each new body design. Of course, smaller vehicles still exist, but when you are trying to push your cart in between vehicles in a parking lot, you don’t see any.

So are vehicles really getting bigger every year or am I just imagining the gaps getting smaller between cars? An article on jalopnik.com says there are several reasons cars get bigger. It sites tougher safety standards, a general American preference for larger cars and “making cars bigger also allows automakers to deal with lower fuel economy and emissions targets.” Simply put, author Patrick George says, “One day we’ll all be driving tanks.”[i]

A lot of mothers I know like larger vehicles, so they can more easily tote their children, their children’s stuff and their children’s friends. When gas prices are lower, those with bigger vehicles, including large trucks seemingly win. They get their space at a better price.

Proxemics (prok-SEE-miks) is a word coined in the 1960s by Edward T. Hall, American anthropologist. This mix of “proximity” and “-emics” (taken from the word “phonemics,” meaning the description and classification of the phonemes of a specific language) is the study of spatial requirements of both humans and animals. We all require a certain amount of space, and the amount we have affects behavior, communication and social interaction. Part of the study of linguistics involves the role of space between people during communication.

The role of proxemics is conceivably larger than we could imagine. Arguments of over-population, the effects of having a lot of people in one area, the dynamics of people moving into previously considered nature (or animal territory) …there’s a lot to think about. For a common example, consider the proxemics of office space. Some companies like the open-concept, however multiple articles in the last three months have shown negative views toward this idea of eliminating private offices and cubicles to encourage collaboration and teamwork. The open-office concept can be visually enthralling but does not work for everyone. Some employees find open areas distracting, less productive and patience-depleting.

Harvard Business Review’s article, “How to Make Sure People Won’t Hate Your New Open Office Plan,” by Brandi Pearce and Pamela Hinds, cites the importance of proxemics as part of creating success with open offices. They call it “place identity;” how people feel about the space as well as with the space itself, “When place identity is higher, employees report more engagement in their work, more communication with their peers, and a stronger connection to the company.”[ii]  The authors devised steps for company management to follow to make open-concept offices more palatable.

Now if parking lot developers would be open to discussing proxemics, I wouldn’t mind always forgetting my parking spot.

[i] https://jalopnik.com/the-surprising-other-reason-cars-keep-getting-bigger-1785292229

[ii] https://hbr.org/2018/01/sgc-research-when-moving-to-an-open-office-plan-pay-attention-to-how-your-employees-feel

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