Stadiums are cool to browse and standardization is convenient, but the formula has its limits when it comes to addressing the long tail of non-stadium communities.

So I will risk sounding like an old raver shaking her cane to note that subcultures, even the vapid ones, used to tie their participants to people and places. Getting into a scene could be work; it required figuring out whom to talk to, or where to go, and maybe hanging awkwardly around a record store or nightclub or street corner until you got sco... See more

As we leave the stadiums and movie theaters and parking lots, as with the best gatherings, we begin to wonder: if it was possible here, where else might we create anew?