A lot of the things we do on a daily or weekly basis have ways of doing them that can either be private or communal, some of these which we do not think to consider as having that characteristic.
For example, bathing in the Roman Empire used to be communal, but then Rome fell and citizens in the splinter countries began taking baths privately.
Receiving mail is another example. There are countries which don’t have mailboxes and everyone gets their mail at the post office in the PO boxes. It was the United States which pioneered the idea of the modern mail system, which is why we associate it as a private act.
There are activities as well which don’t have any history as jumping between one or the other that might benefit from it, for example I think towns might benefit if internet was free and freely accessible but only at the local library.
What’s a non-communal aspect of life you think should be communal?
This is very close to your mail example but can we please move on from delivering items directly to houses? Just give me a destribution center or box at a 10-15 min walking distance and I’ll gladly pick up everything from there when it’s actually convenient. We can still keep the other model for special cases.
What if we work backwards on this?
Introduce community boxes at junction points where USPS already delivers, and/or next to a parks so you can say hi to your neighbors and stuff. Ensure any box is within a tolerable walking distance for the average community member served. (Best figure five minutes here folks.)
Allow residents with mail being delivered to their physical addresses to opt in to delivery at their associated neighborhood box.
Market the boxes as happy medium between visiting a staffed post office at the center of a city and risky doorstep delivery. Locked boxes large enough to accommodate everyday parcels basically nix those pesky pilfering porch pirates.
Continue regularly scheduled deliveries to individual addresses because the route will continue to exist at some level of specificity anyway no matter how many or how few community boxes materialize. Carriers essentially keep the same routes but get to drop mad loads of
malemail into a bunch of ready and willing local slots near you, driving efficiency up and logistics strategists wild.Promote additional box patronage by offering a slight discount whenever postage/shipping is purchased for a specific physical address utilizing delivery to a community box. Immediate and total coverage of community boxes across America is neither expected nor necessary, but hell, reward those who lighten that load for others.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk!
sincerely, louise dajoy
Edit: got high while writing and it took a turn for the weird
But doesn’t this already exist? For most packages I get, I can choose to either have them delivered to my door or to a package station, where I put my delivery number in and it unlocks the compartment my package is in. Same for sending packages.
Here’s an example:
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I’m in Europe though, not sure if it’s a thing in the US.
We’re seeing mixed use of it in the US. Amazon has these in certain places, like at 7-11 locations. Newer apartment complexes also have lockers near the mailboxes but they’re only for tenants.
I got used to using the latter when I did deliveries for Amazon and they’re great when the complex owner has them set up properly with every tenant listed and enough lockers to accommodate how much people are ordering online nowadays.
That’s pretty much the idea, you put it in much better words than me. Let’s make community boxes the default and if you want home delivery you can have that.
Side comment, I don’t get how the US deals with porch pirates. Here someone needs to be at home and sign to receive the delivery because literally leave a brick outside and it will have been picked up by someone within the next couple of hours.
I could see delivery drivers really appreciating this. They deserve a break.