What is Real?

Precious little these days, let me tell you.  Do you know what a Potemkin village is?  Of course you, you well-informed, hyper-connected, earth-conscious hipster.  The point is that I work in architecture--urban planning, more specifically and I will tell you that what you think is real, is not real.  When you go to a modern outdoor shopping center what does it look like?  You've got trees in clusters, paths of cobblestone pavers or other earth tone materials, tall street lamps and benches.  Most importantly, you have shops.  Or should I say shoppes.  These shoppes have large windows, warm lights from the inside and quaint signs that hang overhead.  It's important for you to know to that this is not real.  It's only supposed to look real.  It's only supposed to look like a village from a Hans Christian Anderson story.  Do you think the owner of that store hand-carved the sign that hangs over the doorway?  Is it even made out of wood?  Is that person even the owner?  Do you think that store is really lit by candlelight?  Is that real frost on the window?  Are you really standing in Cape Cod?  None of this is real.  It's an illusion.  It's a lie.  And you bought it all hook, line and sinker.  As an architecture specialist, we design these illusions, or "spaces" as they are called by some of my contemporaries for one singular purpose.  That purpose is to separate you from your money.  And as you can see with the number of "spaces" like the one I've been describing have cropped up in the last 5 years, you can guess that they are effective.  The fundamental principle behind this is that humans are essentially stupid and that for some unknown reason, if you can get one to feel good about something, they are going to spend money.  This is known as the "Evocative Finance" phenomenon.  People think with their hearts no matter how much you try to convince them to do otherwise.  And so we build these quaint Potemkin villages complete with waterwheels, flower beds, sculptured rockeries and views of sunset because it makes humans feel good, it makes them think with their hearts.  They like this kind of atmosphere.  They want to be part of the story.  Which they are, it's just that we're the authors and they do what we say.  And so with them feeling good about the world, they spend spend spend on anything.  And that gives our clients a good return on their investment which in turns makes them feel good about us and the cycle repeats itself.