What Are the Real Third Places?

T hird places — cafes, community centers, and other public places that, as sociologist Ray Oldenburg observed, may increase communal ties by hosting “the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work” — are in the news once again. New research shows that these places helped cushion the effect of the pandemic across a range of measures, including personal bankruptcies, mental-health outcomes, and coronavirus infections and deaths. It has long been theorized that these “third places” play a powerful role in anchoring and sustaining community, and they undeniably have done so during the pandemic. The latest research shows which type of third place does the most good in creating social capital and community strength. 

Thanks to data from a recent national survey on community satisfaction, we have a deeper understanding of how third places influence communities. It is often assumed that levels of connectivity to one’s neighborhood are a function of the population density of the place where one lives, whether it be a big-city center, a more isolated rural area, or a sprawling leafy suburb. The survey data prove that assumption misguided. They show that what makes a difference in terms of feeling locally connected is having third places nearby and that the most impactful third places are spaces of private consumption, such as cafes and restaurants, and not public facilities like community centers and libraries, which are often touted as community anchors and saviors.

The survey data confirm the import of having third places nearby for when Americans report that they have local amenities nearby that they visit regularly — such as a local coffee shop, bar, restaurant, gym, or park — most (58 percent), regardless of where they live, say that they feel close to their neighborhoods and neighbors. The figure drops 15 points, to 43 percent, when they do not have a local third place to visit.

Breaking it down further: It turns out that 56 percent of Americans have a local coffee shop, bar, restaurant, park, or other public place that they visit regularly in their local community. And of those who frequent such places, almost two-thirds (64 percent) generally recognize other people from their community who go there. In those cases where Americans have a local, third place and regularly recognize others, 68 percent feel close to their neighbors and neighborhoods, compared with the 43 percent of those who lack third places.

As for understanding what, then, are these third places, Americans say that they are overwhelmingly private local amenities such as cafés and coffee shops (29 percent) or bars and restaurants (29 percent). About a quarter of Americans (24 percent) say that their third place is a public park, community garden, or dog park. The remaining types of third places are smaller and scattered. Just 5 percent of respondents think that bookstores, corner stores, or other commercial spaces are their third spaces. The numbers even are lower for libraries (3 percent), gyms (3 percent), community centers (2 percent), and barbershops (2 percent).

What is particularly notable here is the clustering of answers around what sort of institutions are the preferred third places. They are places of food and drink and local parks. Libraries, community centers, and other such projects popular with politicians and planners are not salient whatsoever, despite being places, along with barbershops, that are regularly fetishized in the academy and press as being core social and communal institutions.

Libraries, for instance, are not functioning as central pieces of social infrastructure; they are not palaces of the people and serving as great spaces of civic mixing. Libraries are simply not significant to the lives of Americans. Only 7 percent of Americans visit libraries weekly, while 59 percent report that they seldom or never visit their local public library. These statistics do not differ, either, by the respondents’ age, income, racial or ethnic background, or neighborhood type (urban, suburban, rural, etc.). If libraries are “‘the best exemplars’ of our collective life,” it is no wonder that so many Americans are managing an epidemic of loneliness, a friendship recession, and ongoing civic decline.

Certainly libraries and barbershops, along with gyms and community centers, matter to some, but it is the quasi-private public-facing establishments that are what most drive engagement with communities and their residents. In New York City, the rebirth of the once dangerous and decrepit Madison Square Park can be traced to the opening of the now famous Shake Shack in 2001. The entire community has grown through a private renaissance of new restaurants and cafés ringing the park. San Francisco’s Ferry Terminal sparked a similar redevelopment along the waterfront with private restaurants and cafés. Countless other examples can be found nationwide, from the Armatureworks project in Tampa Heights, Fla., to the small town of Leadville, Col., whose redevelopment is being led by private investment in cafés and restaurants, not in libraries and barbershops.

Of course, none of this is to say that public projects do not matter. They do, and public parks remain impactful. But for communities that want to increase the satisfaction of their residents and promote more social capital and community connections, the evidence is unambiguous and strong: Development incentives and conditions for private investment are a must, along with some public projects such as parks. Third places have proven to be critical throughout the pandemic. Helping to foster private development should be a priority for all locales, for it is the existence of places of consumption that creates community, regardless whether the locale is a dense urban center or a sparsely populated rural area.