Does Starbucks Community = Actual Community?

I’ve got a theory. Actually calling it a theory is over playing it. It’s more like a suspicion, or maybe an inkling. Whichever of the two fits best.

I’ve been into a few different branches of Starbucks recently and noticed that they’ve all got these ‘community’ boards. I suspect they’re a global thing. They’re basically free spaces for local people to stick up notices (the photo above is from the Hove branch).

I’m hypothesising that you can tell how active a local community is by the density of notices on the board. However, I’m basing this on a very limited sample of 5 Starbucks branches.

• 3 in the City in London – very little community
• 2 in Brighton and Hove – lots of community, typically based around Tai Chi and tofu-weaving ;-)

Anyone have any observations to support or destroy my suspicions?