Do Yourself a Favor and Go Find a ‘Third Place’

Everyone is always posting about how third spaces are dead, and that we’re living in an era of unprecedented social isolation and anomie. Well, in SF we have a third space, and it’s called Dolores Park. If you live in a city with at least one bookstore and one music venue, they probably host these things called events? Where you can meet people? An... See more

When it comes to established environments that serve the needs of as many people as possible, experts agree that public parks are the closest we have to an ideal third place. Parks are preferably welcoming to all members of the community for a variety of activities; they ideally have bathrooms, water fountains, and cooling tree cover; they’re free ... See more

If we don't have real third places, what do we have instead? Oldenburg calls what we have as non-places. In real places, a human being is a unique individual person. In non-places, individuality disappears and you're either a customer, a client, an address to be billed, or a car to be parked. Places have now mostly been reduced to consumerism. Alli

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To get the most out of third places, you’ve got to find one you enjoy frequenting. Mine your interests, Littman says, to discover a location that fulfills your needs. For instance, if you love books but don’t necessarily want to discuss them with others, find a bar or café that offers silent reading nights for people who want to read communally. Se... See more

There are still plenty of great third places where you can hang out comfortably as long as you want, of course—but they increasingly feel like luxury goods, carrying an expectation of higher spending or restricting access outright (there are also true public spaces like parks and libraries, which are a separate category altogether). When a single c... See more

I believe that we can build something that offers people a chance to participate in these new types of experiences, punctuated by silence and other opportunities for reflection. And they must be offered—because they no longer emerge naturally in the world that we live in. In other words, people don’t naturally fall into them or opt-in to them. They... See more