Ancient Athens was a genuine democracy partly because of the physical existence of agora, circular or semi- circular seating designed for all members of the community to come together as one and collaborate in decision making.
Such public structures are rare or non-existent in representative "democracy" in an effort, perhaps often instinctive and unconscious, to keep the population isolated and divided, to consolidate and facilitate the power monopoly of the so-called elected representatives.
The closest thing to public agora in recent history was the occupy movement which had to resort to commandeering parks illegally.
It was also ironically plagued by desperate and dysfunctional, often homeless, people created by the system they were opposing.
Sports fields, currently designed to divide the population and preoccupy them with vacuous animalistic trivia and preparation for war might be better reversed in design to become modern agora, community hubs for creative collaborative participatory democracy.
