Becoming a resident is a time-consuming process. It requires that the individual hang about some public space for long and regular periods. Dropping in now and then may do for the customer, stopping by briefly three times a week may do for the patron, but becoming and remaining a resident is almost a full-time job. In fact, for some people, it is a full-time job and they constitute one type of resident: the public space employee. The other type of resident achieves his status avocationally rather than vocationally; these are the colonizers. As might be expected, given the long hours required, colonizers tend primarily to be drawn from the ranks of our old acquaintances: the organizationally unaffiliated floaters.

DEFINE: Distinguishes residents from customers and patrons by time investment, and introduces the subcategories of public space employees and colonizers. XREF: Connects to Oldenburg's 'third place' concept and sociology of urban public life.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 716