I want to share a post I read on Reddit by u/ReverendDizzle about the catastrophic destruction of the “third place”. This post was submitted as a “best of” and rightfully so. On reading the title, I thought it might be about society as a whole discounting the achievement of bronze medals in the Olympics, but no, its about a place people can go that isn’t home and isn’t work.
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/104y44r/comment/j38il6d/?context=2
Third places have been in catastrophic decline for decades. The book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community came out in 2000, talking about the collapse of community activities and third places (and that book was, in turn, based on a 1995 essay written by the author).
Discussion of the collapse of third places goes back even further than that, though, the seminal work on the topic, Ray Oldenburg's The Great Good Place was published in 1989.
One of the reasons the show Cheers was so profoundly popular in the 1980s was because generations of Americans were mourning, whether they realized it or not, both the death of (and the crass capitalization of) the third place. Cheers functioned as a pseudo-third-place that millions of people sat down to watch every night to feel like they were going to the third places that were fading from the American experience.
A lot of people don't think about it, but part of the death of the third place is the crass capitalization mentioned above. How many places can the average American go anymore without the expectation that they spend their money and get out?
Sure, many current and historic third places have an element of capitalism (after all, the public house might be a public house, but somebody needs to pay the land taxes and restock the kegs). But modern bars and restaurants fail to fulfill the function of a pub and most would prefer you consume and leave to free up space for another person to consume and leave. The concept of the location functioning as a "public house" for the community is completely erased.
Most modern places completely fail to meet even a few of the elements Oldenburg used to define the ideal third space:
Neutral Ground: The space is for anyone to come and go without affiliation with a religion, political party, or in-group.
Level Ground: Political and financial status doesn't matter there.
Conversation: The primary purpose of the location is to converse and be social.
Accessible: The third place is open and available to everyone and the place caters to the needs and desires of the community that frequents it.
Regulars: On a nightly or at least weekly basis the same cast of people rotate in and out, contributing to the sense of community.
Unassuming: Third places aren't regal or imposing. They're home-like and serve the function of a home away from home for the patrons.
Lack of Seriousness: Third places are a place to put aside person or political differences and participate in a community. Joking around and keeping the mood light is a big part of the "public house" experience.
Third Place as Home: A third place must take on multiple elements of the home experience including a feeling of belonging, safety, coziness, and a sense of shared ownership. A successful third place has visitors saying "this is our space and I feel at home here."
There are a few truly independent places left where I live like a bookstore owned by a person who lives right down the street from me and a pub that's been a private family owned business for the last century (again, where the pub owner lives a mile down the road from me) that still meet most of the criteria on the list. But I live in a city of hundreds of thousands of people and the majority of places that should be third places are not. They're just empty facsimiles of what a third place should be, if they are even a passing (albeit empty) facsimile at all.
And frankly, that's worse than no third place at all, if you ask me. A bad copy of a third place that tries to trick you into believing that it's a third place is so much more damaging than there being no apparent third places at all.
I realized that what we are aiming to create here at CDFC is a kind of Third Place. Its not a public space, like a coffee house or a bowling alley, but a place for leisure and socializing nonetheless. A place for people who find joy in making music and random art projects and generally vibing. A place where you can be your quirky self and build community with other creative folks.