The diminishing availability of third places is a true tragedy. It is increasingly difficult to find places where you can just exist, without a prerequisite financial transaction.
I've been full-time remote for 9 years, and the part that's really taking a toll on me is that, without third places, and without work, I have only the "first place". And that's just not enough to be healthy.
This has been on my mind for years, though I hadn't been aware of a the formal definition of a third place. If you grew up religious and then found yourself secular as an adult, you may miss that gathering together that goes with a church service, if not the accompanying beliefs. It's really too bad there isn't something similar but without centering around a core spiritual belief.
How cool would it be to have a building with a kitchen and a sound system and huge screen and instruments and a gymnasium and occasional childcare? You could still have book clubs and speeches, but the book would not be a religious book, and the speeches could be about anything apolitical.
Tsh Oxenreider recently posted a nice piece on third places.
https://thecommon.place/p/thirdplacehomesteads
I'm definitely missing have a third place in my suburban life.
World of Warcraft was a third place for me and my friends, and for some of my internet friends as well. The game itself offered low-intensity, low-attention interactions too, like fishing, and we would combine these activities with just hanging out, but online. It's one of the most memorable things for me from my time in that game, and that's surely because of how important this function is socially.
I discovered a strange third place last night: a Counter Strike Source server in my country. It had about ten different people talking over voice chat. They were all very frank and cheerful, and it seemed like they congregate there each night. I’m going to start joining regularly.
A lot of the comments here are bemoaning the lack of third places, but don't seem to have read the intro paragraph of the linked Wikipedia article.
> churches, cafes, bars, clubs, public libraries, gyms, bookstores, makerspaces, stoops and parks
I would also mention that many planned or intentional communities explicitly include a third place -- a community building, clubhouse, country club, student union, retirement home lounges, etc.
You'll also find rec centers, YMCAs, JCCs, etc.
Don't give up on finding your "third place" just because you don't belong to a church or have a for-profit business in your area that wants you to hang out all day.
Hmmm. As someone lucky enough to have a solid group of friends I’ve been a big user of Third places throughout my life. However, for years now sitting in a voice lobby(Discord) with my friends has replaced it. Same people, same vibe, more convenient.
What is a "third place" for introverts who are not very keen on socializing?
May 2022, Starbucks: We're creating the digital Third Place
(crypto/metaverse nonsense)
https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2022/starbucks-creatin...
I don’t think true third places really exist in the Western world anymore, at least on a large scale. If you read about the history of coffee houses in Vienna or in Istanbul, they were entirely different from the commercial-product focused coffee shop of today. In such places, the coffee was almost an afterthought, secondary to the social life that went on there.
The heyday of the coffee house was the turn of the nineteenth century when writers like Peter Altenberg, Alfred Polgar, Egon Friedell, Karl Kraus, Hermann Broch and Friedrich Torberg made them their preferred place of work and pleasure. Many famous artists, scientists, and politicians of the period such as Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Adolf Loos, Theodor Herzl, and Alfred Adler.[15] Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Leon Trotsky and Josip Broz Tito were all living in Vienna in 1913, and they were constant coffee house patrons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viennese_coffee_house
Ottoman era coffeehouses democratized education across all stratums of society. Because individuals from a variety of backgrounds gathered in these coffeehouses, illiterate or low literacy people could sit alongside educated individuals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_coffeehouse
I’m not sure such places could exist in a world with smartphones and to-go drinks.
This was a core part of Starbuck's strategy. They wanted to be the defacto 3rd place, and were making great progress. Before Starbucks most coffee in the US was diners or togo drip in a styro cup.
https://www.fastcompany.com/887990/starbucks-third-place-and...
Unfortunately, Kevin Johnson pushed hard to maximize profits and cut costs to the direct detriment of the original "3rd place" vision. His focus was on pushing toward smaller to go / drive thru locations. The logic is pretty obvious. Smaller places that sell more units are more profitable. Large comfy coffee shops where people sit sipping 1 coffee for hours aren't.
Laxman Narasimhan took over this year and it is unclear how that will impact things, but I doubt "being the 3rd place" is even a goal of Starbucks anymore.