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Do Yourself a Favor and Go Find a ‘Third Place’
T he best third places are rec centers and libraries. Modern third places need to offer transformation, not just transaction. While cafes have become laptop farms, gyms and libraries remain sacred spaces for the body and the mind.
Matt Yao • Short Hot Takes, Long and Loosely Held
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
... See moreMina Le • Third Places, Stanley Cup Mania, and the Epidemic of Loneliness
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to poor neighborhoods in big cities, and the community leaders tell me the real crisis for poor teenagers is that there’s just not much for them to do anymore, and nowhere to go,” Klinenberg told me. “I’d like to see the government build social infrastructure for teenagers with the creativity and generosit... See more
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
You need shared contexts and shared interests. The reason why it’s difficult to make friends as an adult is because where there's shared context (seeing the same people over many months daily i.e. workplaces) there's a lack of shared interests. Where there's shared interest (hobby groups, bookclubs, etc) there's a lack of shared context. A place li... See more
The role of informal, everyday interaction—sometimes unpredictable and serendipitous—should not be underestimated. But this requires a place-based social infrastructure that encourages such interaction. Neighbourhood churches (or other places of worship), religious activities, schools, butcher shops, markets, town squares, beauty parlours, taverns,... See more
What Is Community?
Oldenburg contends the most important “first place” in a community is the home. The places where we work are our “second place” since work is required and serious and “reduces the individual to a single productive role.” Our “third place” is composed of those informal, neutral, public social spaces we visit voluntarily—where “conversation is the pr
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