cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/c/newbrunswick@lemmy.ca/p/981650/third-places
Any recommendations for free or inexpensive place?
Places I can think of:
Coffee shops
Breweries and pubs
Libraries
Parks
Small scale music concerts
Axe throwing
Malls
University campuses
Skate parks are good 3rd places.
Unlike other hobbies or sports, you don’t necessarily need to be a member of a club, get expensive equipment or be on a specific time.
Lots of young people just hang out. There’s a large overlap with various subcultures. If there’s a group of skaters, they’ll usually have a whole entourage of photographers, artists and musicians.
Sometimes it’s a little too succesful though. Some skate parks are build in isolated areas, which can attract all kinds of scum. Then it’s best to come when actual skaters are using it.
It’s usually very inclusive. Nobody cares about age, gender, race or abilities. Skaters respect anyone who goes out there and tries. This is also why random scum will usually fuck off when they realize that nobody gives them attention for reving up their moped engines or whatever they do to piss off their territory.
Ray Oldenburg argues that third places are important for democracy, civic engagement, and a sense of place.
So that’s why America is so hostile to third places!
The wealthy class (in business and government) actively work to destroy places like this because these are the places where low income folk assemble in larger numbers… Where they can discuss unionization, political dissonance and find common ground despite previously perceived differences.
Conversation is the main activity.
This seems like the biggest hurdle. Seems like a lot of people have lost their ability to connect with each other through conversation.
A friend of mine had a neighbourhood event started by one site neighbour. He owns his home every month for conversation. There’s a topic each month, and there are rules about listening, being respectful, no phones allowed, etc. It’s strictly for having open conversation. My friend loves it.
yeah, this is what I hate. people dont’ talk anymore. they preach, the sell, they complain, but they never ever converse.
I managed a third space and around '22 there was a huge shift, people started being adversarial and pushy, and less cooperative and chill. and so many people started trying to sell you something, which is what really rubbed me the wrong way. i don’t want to be advertised to constantly, like this one woman would come and endless promote her cold plunge club, and I just got so sick of her, because she wasn’t there to participate, she was there to promote her weird little alt medicine lifestyle crap, under the pretense of ‘participation’.
the problem is everything gets co-opted by agenda-fueled people. online, and in real life. So many folks have internalized their ‘self-branding’ they see everyone and everything as product promotion.
I can recall in the 2000s and 2010s have actually long meandering conversations that had substance… I don’t meet anyone who can talk like that anymore. Everything is scattershot and nothing of substance can ever be said because it’s some sort of imposition now. The way I used to connect to people in college and graduate schools is largely forbidden now. I think about the chats I had back then and all I can see is freaking people out by talking that way in 2026. We used to have talks and debates about things in the world and we didn’t HATE each other over our differences on our views about the Iraq War or any of that.
I’m not sure what your conversations of “substance” were, nor the substantive topics involved.
Looking back, my third-space convos were either
- sports; or avoiding that pseudo-relationship people have with their chosen team
- jobs, which can only be so much complaining before it needs to be about something exciting and positive that isn’t NDA-covered
- politics; which we get enough of and we all generally agree the US is gonna change radically soon and hope it’s with guillotines
- TV shows and other gossip
- how about that weather - and its substantive sibling “how fucked is the climate for the remainder of our lifespan and why is that clown allowing diesel powered DCs”
- anyone cooked anything - and its sibling “how 'bout them grocery prices thanks to the amazing economic power weilded by that clown”
Unless they drop another season of The Littlest Hobo, I’m out of chat material. We just didn’t talk about important philosophical stuff with the easy-breezy flow of a coffee house.
I’m prepared for the No True Scot response so, if you go that route, try and dress it up a bit.
Parcs are a good one!
Depending on where you are, you might be able to add: sport associations, church yards, museums.
I like how you added University campuses, because I think most universities understood quite well that students need sons chill spaces to socialize and relax. Unfortunately, the rest of the world has mostly been eroding those places and aim to turn a profit out of them.
Are there museums people regularly go to and just chill and chat? I’ve never seen that.
One of the things I love about Vietnam is the use of public spaces and shared residential spaces for daily social interaction and informal gatherings.
Maybe I’m confused about the concept but it sounds like anything can be a third space? National Park, shooting range, center of a roundabout, random bench by the road…
Indeed, as long as it fits this
One criteria for a third place, according to Jeffres et al. (2009), is that it “offers stress relief from the everyday demands of both home and work. It provides the feeling of inclusiveness and belonging associated with participating in a group’s social activities, without the rigidity of policy or exclusiveness of club or organization membership”.
In that case, I wouldn’t know really. Drinking a coffee or a beer or something doesn’t really make me feel “inclusiveness and belonging associated with participating in a group’s social activities” — you’re still alone, even if surround by others
I see what you mean, but depending on the context, having drink alone can lead to unexpected social interactions.
I guess it’s also a place where you can meet a friend(s) without the expectations that exist at work and at home. Lacking those places means lacking a space for social activities. What do you think ?
I used to drink alone a lot but that didn’t lead to social interactions. I think it’s a cultural thing, in most of Europe people wouldn’t interact with strangers while there are other countries where you make friend by simply walking on the street
I’m often on business trips and had nice talks with different kinds of people, when I was sitting at a bar alone
Depends on the country, but e.g. Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Austria…
Norway was a bit isolating though
I once met a bunch of people in a bar in Australia when traveling with another Dutch guy who also said “this would never happen in the Netherlands”, validating it’s not just me.
Whereas Portuguese people would grab me off the street to invite me to join them.
So I guess I’m confused why you’d group Netherlands with more friendly and hospitable counties.
Really?
I had a customer in the Netherlands for years and was there on vacations as well
I’m always needing to adjust, because I find them so open and friendlyAt least with Portugal we had the same experience :-)
France is quite hit or miss.
In my experience it’s either one of the friendliest person I’ve ever met or a real asshole.
Seemingly nothing in between.But maybe it’s just relative to the culture we’re coming from…
I’m from Austria and met some Afghans at a paintball tournament.
They showed me pictures of them afterwards, where they were standing in the desert with AKs, because of the war.
They had a real problem at first in Austria, because after a beer or two, it could be that they hug you while talking, whereas in their home region eye contact alone was enough to start a fight.
the problem wtih this is human beings eventually move towards rigidity of policy or exclusiveness.
i ran a third space for years. the issue was… everyone kept pushing us to become more rigid and exclusive.
people do not like open spaces, as in anyone can participate. they want barriers to entry and they want the space to affirm them and they don’t want to be around diverse people who might challenge those affirmations.
I would guess that even a chat room can be a third place.
spoiler alert: You’re in one.
Arguably this is a “first place” since I almost always access it while at home.
Do you discuss only with family members on Lemmy?
According to the article, this is a Virtual Third Place. IMHO it’s not the same as a physical place. I’ve lived in places where I had third places, and now I live in a place where I don’t, and the difference is stark.
I wholely recommend climbing/bouldering walls. Gets you fitter, most people are super friendly and if you pick a regular day you’ll meet people. Most of them do a intro to climbing course where you can meet people and then a beginners or intermediate weekly session where you can meet people and get some guidance on getting better
as someone who has been doing it for more than ten years, definitely try out bouldering. It’s a great activity with very nice people.
however I’m not sure I would consider it a third place. it is usually quite expensive, and the people are there still primarily for climbing, not for conversation, at least not as main activity.
it’s not.
Also, I’d be more interested in climbing if people didn’t try to convert you and act like it was a religion. People are so weirdly pushy about it. The demographics of who goes there is very exclusive, at least in my city. Because it’s like 200-300/mo base fee, which means it almost all yuppies. I make over 100K and I think it’s way too expensive, personally.
They’re expensive though…
Museums often have free days
For me, it’s parks, and the street. I bring my children to play outside and I chat with neighbors and other parents.
This is a side-tangent from finding alternative third places (the motivation for which I fully support), but I always like to raise this when people bring up the concept: third places are not (and never really were) a thing. It was an ideal invented by a guy who had a very specific idea of what society should look like that was rooted in misogyny and patriarchy. We all should be seeking community, which is what I see in this thread, but from a planning perspective there are much better ways to think about organising our spaces than through the “third place”.
Here’s a very good video about it by someone far more qualified to talk about it if you want to know more: https://youtu.be/8E5MegoW2pA
In other words, “your third place is where you relax in public, where you encounter familiar faces and make new acquaintances.”
The only place I can think of for me is a coffee shop, which costs money (and I can’t go to anymore because I’m out of money). I also don’t drink, so breweries and pubs are right out (as well as being hellah expensive even in ‘normal’ times). I’m as well not one for conversation, mostly just wanting to focus on whichever topic I’m studying at that moment.
Libraries are a good place too, but a lot of the time they also smell like body odour, dead skin and piss because housing has been commodified. Similarly I have to pack everything up and bring it with me if I want to use the bathroom, which are usually terrible experiences…
Parks would would be fine but there’s always going to be noise pollution and pollution pollution from the ever-present combustion engine which makes it a quite uncomfortable and distracting for me (and sometimes downright unpleasant). As well, the weather is starting to get colder and wetter which means they’ll be empty more often then not.
Small concerts and axe throwing… both cost money. Sometimes a lot of money. The axe throwing I’ve done cost a lot, and was just one activity to do in the arcade-like place. It was basically a restaurant with games. Concerts are also not really something I enjoy anymore.
Malls and university campuses can be great, but I’d also be remiss to leave anything on a table or something while using the bathroom, as well as all places like that being relatively far away and with malls in particular also suffering from the commodification of housing. I like going to the university, but it takes a long time to get there on my bike unless I have money for the bus.
All in all, the biggest issue for me is security. I want to simply use the bathroom or whatever without worrying that my stuff will be gone when I get back. I feel like I can do this in most cafés but doing so almost anywhere else would give me anxiety so I’m stuck with cafes that I can’t afford.
*Essentially the ideal ‘third-place’, in my opinion, has to be free and secure. Both of these don’t have to be mutually exclusive but it seems like it is, at least when society is administered by capitalistic authority structures.
Axe throwing is really out there! Concerts are difficult for a third place because they are not regular.
That seems like chatting at the gym, with the same worries about all guys being seen as creepers. Chatting and “don’t compare form for tips or ask for advice or offer advice or even make eye contact” (rules for white guys at gyms) don’t mix well.
Some friends and I started a community workshop 5years ago. what started as a purely functional arrangement has become a proper third place now: meet for conversation, no expectation to spend money, there’s always someone already there.
Ofc getting enough ppl as critical mass is challenging, but I can only encourage you to create your own third place.
who pays the rent?
Reminds me of a local group that set up an emergency response station for their community. Something I would love to do; however, when asked how everything was funded it turned it it was just one rich old dude that decided to set it up on a whim. Yet, they still tell people to set up their own groups in their communities… but obviously the one barrier to that is there isn’t a rich person in every community that would be open to the idea.
Sure, we could crowdfund the equipment, but to do it properly would cost millions of dollars, mostly for electricians to set up solar panels and a direct line to the local grid to make sure everything’s ready.
yeah. people don’t get the logistics, the liability, the legality.
if you start a third space, and there is an accident or incident, you’re gonna get sued. you also have to pay rent, utilities, and usage fees that may be in your town/city. and now in the age of social media, you can expect to be harassed/mobbed/campaigned against if you upset the wrong person.
the problem with third space idealism is that everyone wants someone else to take on the burden of this stuff. and it’s a burden. there isn’t much direct benefit to people who are in charge of these spaces.
are you asking for advice for your own place or as a gotcha? in any case, we’re a core group of 16 people that split the rent. there are some events throughout the year that bring in some money for upkeep a bit.
i’m asking as a legit question. rent where i live for any commercial space is several thousand dollars a month, so you need a sweetheart deal to be able to run any space, or a huge grant or some other big source of funding.
in my case our space was given to us free by someone as a evenings-only lease on on an space that was owned outright by a rich guy and he used us a tax write-off/donation to the tune of $3000/mo.
