South Street: Is it Making us Smarter?

South Street, as you know, is an avenue of stores, with everything imaginable from shoes to pictures to purses. Most just think of it as a place to go and have a great cheese steak or blow money on items that are not really necessary to have. South Street is there to give leisurely activity. When the stores started opening no one was thinking about how to challenge the minds of the shoppers because it was never a topic brought up. The truth is South Street is making the average person smarter for many reasons, one of the biggest is street smarts, it is consistently brought up without any knowledge,and it is just a habit. Another way South Street makes us smarter is because it is making us more aware of directions, and lastly it is harder to follow, it is not just simple.
Street smarts are a crucial part of life, without them your life would fall apart. On South Street common sense goes a long way. For example as you are walking around you decide to run across the middle of the street and you almost get hit by a car. You are not going to make that mistake again because it would be illogical, so without realizing it you are building up your common sense. Also, you tend to notice that when a store owner wants seventy dollars for a shirt, you are not going to buy it on the spot; you are going to look in other stores first. If you did not do this and got conned into buying the overpriced shirt and saw later you could have gotten it cheaper, you are going to learn that you need to be wise with your finances. It will become instinctual to look in different stores, and once again you are enhancing skills without realizing it. Lastly, common sense occurs when you turn down a back alley and you are mugged. It will be quickly learned that walking down a back alley by yourself is not a bright idea, so once again you are gaining street smarts.
Directional knowledge is easily learned on South Street. It is not noticed, but it happens, for example you use context clues to get around. In "Everything Bad is Good For You" the author says that linking things together makes us smarter. If you know that the best ice cream shop is near Nike then you are becoming smarter by enhancing you memory. Also, you get smarter from directions because you subconsciously notice that the sun is setting behind Jim's so you know which way is north and which way is south without actually ever realizing. That is another reason why South Street is making us smarter.
Lastly, South Street is very complex and not easy to follow. In the book Steven Johnson said that you become smarter by following complexity, when things are to simple it does not spark our interests. South Street does that because it is designed to be difficult to maneuver around unless you learn background details. You have to analyze the small details and connect them in order to follow what is truly happening. For example if there is a huge line outside the fossil store then you know there is a catch, there has to be some sort of sale. If you were simple minded you would just think something miniscule was occuring, but if you went a step further and analyzed the people standing around and you would look for something out of the ordinary. You are stimulating your brain to follow a more complex relationship. These are all of the reasons that South Street is making our culture smarter.