This past spring I was able to take a fun Urban Sociology class. I say fun because I got to read and write about several interesting topics as it relates to how people use and are used by the cities that they live in. The class covered Urban Sociology from its early roots all the way up to contemporary times. One of the class assignments was to write a smallish paper on a topic of your own choosing. I decided I wanted to read more and write about “The Third Place”. I’ll leave the definition and whatnot for the paper after the jump. I will say this this class was interesting because I was able to write in a way that was not strictly academic. I was encouraged by Dr. McKee to add in the narrative. So, without further adieu…
Identifying the Realm and Locale of the Third Place
At one point in my life I worked a 40 hour job that had me managing a team of people that would receive calls, assisting in technical issues that customers had. Those 40 hours sometimes extended themselves into 50 and 60 hours of work a week. However, I got through it with the knowledge that every Thursday night, which was “My Friday”, I could get out of work at nine in the evening, drive over towards the university and spend time in what would be for that time my local watering hole. The place, The Freakin’ Frog, is a dark, yet inviting beer bar that is situated in a strip mall on the East side of Maryland Parkway. Walking into the bar you see about twelve seats along the long side of the bar, and four seats on the short side. There are booths on the left and right walls with large wooden tables in the middle, and a stage on the south side of the room. Settling down at one of the heavy, metal, high back bar stools, the bartender, Jack, would come up and start a conversation. The conversation usually consisted of a warm greeting whether you were a regular or not, and then asking what you would like to drink. The best part was seeing what was new and interesting because as a beer bar they have hundreds of different beers available at any time. Why was this place so important that I made a habit out of coming here every Thursday night for about two years? This was my escape from the work week; this was my time to put off going home to face the chores that I had to do. This was my Third Place.
So, What is The Third Place?
The term in the simplest meaning is a physical geographical location where we can go to be social, be heard, and to listen to others. The basic idea of The Third Place is a place where we can relax from our day at work, before we go home; places that we can form or be a part of a community. Communities that are created simply because they are in a place that we want to visit for amusement. As Oldenburg defines it, “The third place is a generic designation for a great variety of public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gathering of individuals beyond the realms of home and work” (1997, p.16). Let’s break down that definition more. The first thing to consider is that it’s as Oldenburg said, a “generic designation of public places”, that is, the place is not labeled a third place, the designation is mostly assigned by the people who use it to gather, in most cases unknowingly, as to how they are using it. You don’t think about going to a specific location as going to your third place, you think of it as if you are going to the bar, or to the library, or nowadays, online. The phenomena of the third place is something that occurs naturally, or to borrow from the Chicago school, organically. Think of it this way, (Park, Burgess & McKenzie, 1984) wrote about the different levels of community in his essay about the ecological approach to community. One of the types identified, the fourth type states, “[it] is one which is lacking a specific economic base. It draws its economic substance from other parts of the world, and may serve no function in the production or distribution of commodities” (p.67). My interpretation of this is that the [third] place has to draw people in from other parts of town; it alone does not produce anything that could be considered commodity in the classical sense. Or does it? Marx felt that commodity was something that could be constructed; however it was also something that had a social aspect to it because commodities develop a level of abstraction (Merrifield, 2002). The commodity that may be produced by the use of the third place is that of community. Community in my opinion can be so difficult to clearly define that it could be an abstract ideal.
It was a Sunday evening at the corner gas station. The place was bright, well lit and smelled a bit of paint and glue. Sitting along the East wall were several multi-game video poker machines. There were three people at the machines, two women and a man, all playing different versions of video poker. One was playing the progressive, one was playing Keno and the third was playing deuces wild. In between hands they were talking about the fire that broke out a few weeks earlier and caused the closure of the gas station as they repaired and remodeled the place. I asked the attendant what caused the fire, thinking it may have had something to do with the homeless that frequent the area. She said it was the AC Unit that caught fire. One of video poker players chimed in saying that the place now looks better than new, the others agreed, and then went back to playing and conversing about a family issue that one was having with their mother.
Diving into the next part of the definition, “[the third place] host[s] the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gathering of individuals” (Oldenburg, 1997, p.16). People do not look specifically for a third place; they look for a place to go to spend time with others. Since the place has a social aspect to it, it has to be something where you can meet with others to talk and share ideas. Third places can spring up anywhere. In most cases they are privately owned, publicly accessible locations. It can even occur as a location inside of a location. A good example at how this can occur is in Elijah Anderson’s Cosmopolitan Canopy (2004) essay. Anderson would frequent a lunch counter in the Reading Terminal Station. That lunch counter for some was a third place, a place that they knew they could go that would meet the basics that we outlined previously. The lunch counters were a place inside of a place. “Within this canopy are smaller ones or even spontaneous canopies, where instantaneous communities of diverse strangers emerge and materialize” (p.15). In addition Anderson points out, “When taking a seat at a coffee bar or lunch counter, people felt they have something of a license to speak with others, and others have a license to speak with them. Strikingly, strangers engage in spontaneous conversation, getting to know one another as they do” (Anderson, 2004, P.18). Using the idea of the Cosmopolitan Canopy as a third place you can see that people are going there on their own free will. Just as Oldenburg’s definition states, the place has to be one where people go regularly and on their own free will. This is a place where people want to, almost expect to, strike conversation up with someone else. The Cosmopolitan Canopy also lends itself to the idea that the third place has to be informal. The people are not going to a meeting hall, a club or organization where they are bound by tradition and/or pageantry. That formality is usually established by oversight from a central authority or leadership and is not something that can be formed organically. Although to be fair, you can still have the third place type experience, they just need to be free from the context of the formal gathering. Let’s say a large group meets at a coffee shop after Sunday services at their church. That meeting, post services, would fit into the ideals of the third place. The next part of the definition that we’re going to look at is how the location that becomes the third place is one where people gather in happy anticipation. This idea is much the same as how gathering at a third place has to be voluntary. This is a place where people go and expect to be a part of positive interaction and camaraderie.
The final part of the definition is, “beyond the realms of home and work”. The third place should be someplace that is external to the expected routine of your daily life, but it should also be outside of what Lyn Lofland has labeled the ‘private realm’. Lofland (1998) considers the private realm as a place that exists in the home or other private networks. The private network of the home can consist of immediate family and the private network of the work place would consist of coworkers and staff. These two places are private because they are harder to bridge into or out of. Sure you can invite company over to your home, but that does not necessarily mean that you are creating a third place for them. This is not a location or space that can be entered upon by others at random. The entrance is not voluntary either; it is the home which has its rituals, rules and regulations; or a work place that does not allow admittance without proper authority. Plus, who would want to just hang out at work? So where does the third place reside? Continuing with Lofland’s (1998) descriptions of realm, we learn that realms are not all that physical, they are socially constructed. The third place therefore exists in the public realm because it can be seen from a distance, and entered by outsiders (Lofland, 1998), but it clearly falls into the parochial realm. “The parochial realm as characterized by a sense of commonality among acquaintances and neighbors who are involved in interpersonal networks that are locations within communities” (Lofland, 1998, p.10). In other words, the parochial realm is that place within a place, that canopy within a canopy. The commonality may come from several areas, areas such as cheering on your favorite team, or all having a cup of coffee before you go to work.
Third Places Are Everywhere, Anywhere
Back in my 20’s, while attending Hawkeye Community College, I used to have a pretty regular routine that I followed. On Wednesday afternoons I would leave campus and drive to The Core, a comic shop that was tucked away from the main drag of University Avenue. I would pull up to the single story building, park, and walk in to be greeted by either R.J. or Mike, both of whom always greeted me by name. I would stroll around the store looking at all of the comic titles and decide if I wanted to grab something other than what I would normally get from my pull list. I would then strike up a conversation with anyone that was in the store, to get an idea of what others were reading or watching, just in case I missed anything. The conversations could last anywhere from a few moments to an hour or so. When that happened I had to be mindful of the time because I had to head home, clean up, and go to work for the night. Looking back on that time of my life I readily see how the comic book shop was my third place. I still stop by when I am back in Iowa. R.J. has graduated from college and moved on, but the owner, Mike is still there, and every time I go back we catch up on what has changed since the last time I was there.
Now that we have an understanding of what third place is, we should also understand why it’s important to us as people. The use of place is a way that we are able to establish our identity. “We have come to see culture as the outcome and product of interaction; or, to put it another way, to see people as active in the creation of culture, rather than passive in receiving it” (Cohen 1993, p.196). In other words, the culture that is developed in a third place is one where the participants are defining and being defined by it. As Borer put it, “Common and shared places are not only the settings for cultural legends, narratives, rituals and ceremonies. Sometimes they become the main characters in the stories we tell about ourselves (2008, p.17). This means that the location is part of the culture and it is a part of our in-group. Because of this it can be used to identify us and our acquaintances. Even the place that you adapt as a third place becomes the acquaintance.
We use the third place to meet with people for several reasons, sometimes it can be so we can just chat and catch up on news and gossip. We visit the third place to unwind and take a break from the rest of our day and its events. Third place can be used to spread ideology and to affirm and confirm an ideology. As mentioned before, a third place can be used to talk about comics, sports, books, even hate. To borrow again from Borer’s work, the third place gives people a place of and for local sentiment and identity construction (Borer 2006).
With the work that the third place does for identity construction I do want to be clear that the third place does not always have a positive valence associated with it. Pete Simi and Robert Futrell found that the third place can be used by hate groups as a free space, “WPM members develop these particular social relationships, rituals, discourse, and other practices that we discuss below, as prefigurative experiences of an anticipated Aryan dominated future. By concretizing this vision through everyday activities in the movement’s free spaces, members create a powerful social context where they nourish their solidarity and commitment to white power ideals” (2004, p.19). In other words, the third place is used to define who you are, and that may not always be something that is considered socially acceptable by the majority of society. Since culture defines space, and space can define culture, places like comic book shops are nourishing to fans of the medium, the same way that a craft shop can nourish a knitting circle. Yet since the third place is neutral until defined by the user of it, it can nourish a socially negative perspective as well.
Technology and the Third Place
It’s a typical week night, and I am off work late. When I get home Courtney gets up, we chat for a moment, she heads back to bed and I go to my computer to check email, webcampus, and a couple of social media sites. I read links to news stories that have accrued during the day and I take a few moments to reply or “like” comments or posts that others have left. The online world appears to be one area where the next iteration of the third place is occurring. In the last twenty years it has become a canopy within a canopy because it’s a place where you can go to and experience all of the requirements of a third place, without leaving work or home. There is some controversy as to whether or not this is the case however. Oldenburg (1997) feels that, ‘‘the home entertainment industry thrives in the dearth of the informal public life among the American middle class. Demand for all manner of electronic gadgetry to substitute vicarious watching and listening for more direct involvement is high’’ (p.12). Granted this was written in a time where the online culture was nowhere near as rich and as diverse as it is today. There wasn’t a Facebook in 1997, let alone MySpace, or Multi Media Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG). The entertainment of that era was VCR’s and early DVD players, Console game systems like Nintendo or Sega systems. Yet IRC was around at that time, and others could chat and socialize in various “channels” that were specially designated rooms that usually formed around a specific topic or ideology. This thought was not shared by others however. Robert Putnam pointed out that, “Social networks based on computer mediated communication can be organized by shared interests rather than shared space” (p.172). Imagine how, thanks to computer mediated technology the level of escape from the first or second place can occur at any time, in almost any place. The third place online can also allow groups to meet up that, again looking at valance, could lead to a negative association. With computer mediated communication the groups that would be formed in a physical place as a form of individuals who want to be there and be happy and by extension supported in their ideology no longer need social approval to do so. Not to mention they no longer had the difficulties in finding the groups that they wanted to be associated with. (Shirky, 2008)
Where do we go from here with the third place?
Another night at the Frog, it’s a Thursday after work and Courtney and I went to see our friend Joe play. We walked in and both lamented how empty the place is. How the community seems to ignore little gems like the Freakin’ Frog.
There are several things that require further research when talking about the third place since the work by Oldenburg was published. We have seen a shift not only in technology but we have seen a shift in society. As Putnam wrote in Bowling Alone (2000) we have seen a decline of community involvement in organizations. Are we also seeing that same level of decline in the community use of third place, or is this just something that is unique to Las Vegas, or to the always online society?
It’s late in the evening on a Friday in Downtown Fullerton, California, just a couple of miles away from California State University, Fullerton. Courtney and I walk into an Irish pub on Harbor Boulevard and sit in the corner end of the bar, each ordering Smithwicks. We get them in glassware. We alternate between talking about the cool glasses that our drinks came in and the nice vibe of the bar we order another drink and the bartender lets us know that they are switching to plastic cups. Not that it bothers us but we wonder why. After we get our fresh, plastic cup of beer we look towards the back of the bar and realize that the place is packed with college students. They are on their weekend and are looking to unwind from their week, away from their homes, and away from their studies. This is their third place.
References
Anderson, E. (2004). The cosmopolitan canopy. Annals of the american academy of political and social science, 595, 14-31.
Borer, M.I. (2006). The location of Culture: The urban culturalist perspective. City and Community, 5(2), 173-197
Borer, M.I. (2008). Faithful to fenway. New York: New York University Press.
Cohen, A. (1993). Culture as identity: An anthropologist’s view. New Literary History, 24(1), 195-209.
Futrell, R., & Simi, P. (2004). Free spaces, collective identity, and the persistence of u.s. white power activism. Social Problems, 51(1), 16-42. doi: 10.1525/sp.2004.51.1.16
Lofland, L. H. (1998). The public realm: Exploring the city’s quintessential social territory.New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Merrifield, A. (2002). Metromarxism: A marxist tale of the city. London: Routledge.
Oldenburg, R. (1997). The great good place, cafés, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other hangouts at the heart of a community. (second ed.). New York: Da Capo Press.
Park, R. E., Burgess, E. W., & McKenzie, R. D. (1985). The city. Chicago, Illinois: University Of Chicago Press.
Putnam, R. D. (2001). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. (1st ed.). New York: Simon and Schuster.
Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody. New York: Penguin.