The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the H

I took this book out from the library on the suggestion of a friend. I loved it, though Oldenburg occasionally got bogged down in facts and trying to prove his point too much. This book was written around 1990, and a lot has changed in 20 years, but I found the ideas in the book stirred up a lot of thoughts on the "great good places" of 2010 and beyond. I wouldn't shut up about this book to anyone, so while it may not have always been the most gripping read [it took me 3 months to finish!] it definitely inspired many conversations and ideas.

One of my favourite books on design, architecture, social gatherings and the societal dimensions of those.
Splendid work with notes on English clubs (male only), Biergärten (German market-like gatherings for families) etc.

I have been dreaming of my own 'third-place' since I read it

In Our Oriental Heritage, Will Durant wrote that man is not willingly a political animal, that we do not love society so much as we fear solitude. As much as I love Durant's work -- the grandness of his historical approach and the rich eloquence of the language with which he expressed it -- here I must disagree with him. We are social creatures at our roots: to borrow from Augustine, we are made for each other, and our hearts are restless until we find companionship together. Such is the lesson of Roy Oldenburg’s magnificent The Great Good Place, which examines the important role of social centers in human lives, discusses the consequences of their decline in the United States today, attempts to account for why they are struggling, and appeals for their resurrection. It is a timely and momentous work.

I’ve long been tangentially familiar with the phrase, “the third place”, which refers to common gathering places for people in their communities, a place apart from home and work (the first and second places in our lives). But here is that phrase’s origin. Oldenburg begins by establishing what the third place is: a site that attracts people and allows for spontaneous meetings between friends and strangers. These places have been ubiquitous in urban environments throughout human history…at least, until the late 1940s when the United States decided to try a different approach to urban planning, creating ‘sprawls that no longer deserve the the dignity of of being called a city’*. Oldenburg’s opening chapters document the third place’s vital role in creating a sense of community, in fostering political cohesion and providing a platform for civic engagement. But not only that – they’re fun. People like to spend time together, and giving them a place to do it makes society better and improves our quality of life.After establishing this, Oldenburg then moves on some specific examples: English and Austrian coffee houses, French cafes and bistros, American taverns, and main streets. (Although the cover refers to barbershops and salons as third places, the best in his view have been these "watering holes".) This is a book strongly reminiscent of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone: the Decline and Revival of American Community, but while Putnam examined the disintegration of American public life at large, Oldenburg zooms in to everyday life.


If the third place is so important, so vital to healthy personal and national life, how have we allowed ours to be destroyed? Hindsight is always perfect vision: in this case, third places are so normal to the human experience that we take them for granted, and only their loss makes us realize their importance. While third places can be destroyed by the short-sightedness of business owners who discourage "loitering" and convert attractive sitting places into yet more display areas, ultimately the problem is foundational: America's urban landscape is atrocious; "badly staged", in Oldenburg's words. Time and again he scolds planners for creating municipalities where no one can walk anywhere, of building pod after pod of "nothing neighborhoods", of abandoning the diverse density of cities for suburbia's lifeless homogeneity.


The Great Good Place is a fascinating combination of sociology and history with a lot of insight. The loss of third places goes beyond people not having a place to have a drink together. One of the consequences Oldenburg explores is that as community life fades as an alternative, people are forced to look for solace on their own, by attempting to buy happiness in the stores -- and the more they focus on themselves, the less inclined they are to seek connections with other people and the more miserable they are. The fascinating link between alienation and advertising is one of the many gems found in here.

Books like these are why I read in the first place. This isn't a subject of mere academic interest: this is a book that tells us something important about ourselves, with ideas that can change our lives and help Americans concerned about the United States' declining health begin to recover from it. Although the absence of any mention of the internet might date it (a book like this published today would have to address social networking sites), it's never more timely. Ten years after Oldenburg published this, the New Urbanism movement took off -- and reaffirming and reestablishing community life is at the heart of it. As America's urban pattern is forced to change in recognition of suburban's fiscal failure, I hope when we begin building we keep Oldenburg's insights in mind, and build third places.

I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Related:

Bowling Alone: the Decline and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnam
Suburban Nation, Andres Duany et. al

First place: Home
Second place: Work
Third place: Local establishments where, when you are not at your first or second places, you can hang out, run into acquaintances, socialize, gossip. Where everybody knows your name. Where you can leave your kid and know that someone will keep an eye on her. An endangered species.

Reading this book made me want to operate a third place (or a great good place). Or (perhaps the more reasonable option) at least move to a neighborhood full of great good places. At any rate, the experience of reading "The Great Good Place" served to deepen my commitment to sustaining a community. This book is a page-turner without being too mass-markety, and served as the source for many great discussions about the importance of community.

It's something of a mishmash. I think the core thesis has potential, with implications across multiple fields and topics, including urban planning, capitalism, feminism, education, and more. And its fascinating how some of the observations about social life and city planning still feel true decades later.
However, Oldenburg's decision to not delve too deeply into the related topics, combined with his intent to write more casually than statistically, results in a number of claims that don't feel well-supported. And combined with some significant blind spots in his own sense of self-awareness, this also leads to many sections that just feel like like out-of-touch ramblings.

Part I: 4 stars.
Part II: 2.5 stars.
Part III: doesn't deserve a rating.


This book explores a great concept. When it was originally release, it certainly was pretty revolutionary thought. Now, I think we've all heard it and experienced it, so it's not too revolutionary.

But what gets me is the sexist and anti-American sentiment with which Oldenburg writes. Women are obviously the reason men's places have closed, he claims. Most disturbingly, though, is that one of his comments is that women have all the free time in the world. Women do nothing but stay at home all day, so why should they need a third place? It's only the men who work then come home to women who are bitching at them who need a place. Men apparently need the third place to avoid beating their wives. This is a passage in the book, not my fabrication.

I guess this would bother me less if this book weren't in its third edition. Oldenburger's book first printed at a time when maybe there were less women working. But now there is no excuse. Anyone with a bit of education is aware that women, in fact, often work two shifts - the work shift and the home shift. Men, even with women in the workplace, do not contribute to the house work any more now than they did when the wives were at home all day. So, even though this is well-known, Oldenburg gives no credence.

Throughout the entire book, I was able to indicate passages of blatant sexism. It's time to revise for the times.

And does Oldenburg offer any way to amend the situations which he discusses? That would make this more powerful. Oldenburg dwells too much in disparaging America and the American landscape. Instead, he spends an entire section praising European establishments. Though this could be useful, it's shortsighted. Oldenburg doesn't take into account the fact America is young; we don't have the history and legacy upon which European cities thrive. We can't even pretend to equate that. Our cities were just build differently, and our populations grew in ways unlike any European city has seen.

Before this goes further, I'll state this much: the first part of this book is important. Read it, but stop there.

It took me a while to finish this book because of how thought-provoking the content was. Although the book was published in 1989, the problems described are still very much true today, if not, even worse. These lack of third places today further exacerbate the silent epidemic that is loneliness. The young generation frequent hyperconsumerist places like Sephora or Barnes or malls because they’re really the only places they can “hang out”. If not, they’re on their phone. Yet we blame these kids for being too much on social media but the real problem is the lack of places for informal hangouts like back in the “old days”, without having to spend an obscene amount of $$$ to partake. Nowadays, everything is monetized!! As an environmental planner, I feel so deeply inspired to be part of this current conversation, to be a part of the movement of revitalizing third places and reconnecting communities.

Oldenburg's Third Place concept is frequently referenced in my specific field of student unions, so I wanted to read the source material. Casually, I know the idea as being separate from your home and work, as a place you can go to be yourself and relax. This is something student unions strive to be for students and others in the community.

I'm glad I read the book, but it definitely feels dated (e.g., blaming TV for people's lack of connection in free time to community, mentioned prevalence of billiards) and has a nostaligic tone that I don't know if I believe. Were Third Places really as common and wonderful as described? Did soda fountains and neighborhood taverns welcome everyone? Or maybe just for middle class white men it felt this way at times? To sort of give him credit to identifying the weaknesses in his ideas, he describes how spaces were gendered and mostly for men and mentions differences in socioeconomic or immigrant experiences of Third Places, but he rarely touches on people of color and the important context of how experiences were and probably are very different regarding Third Places. Although in the preface, Oldenburg he purposely writes in a less scholarly way ("declined the pose and language of scientific reporting" p.x) that is based on extensive field research, it is this style that in part lends to the skepticism I felt toward it. This style of writing made the it feel more like story-telling, that made me question some of his observations.

I'm glad I read this classic, but, after reading it, I am a little surprised it is referenced so frequently in my field. Oldenburg seems to focus primarily on bars and coffee shops, with a few chapters focused on specific Western European expressions of the Third Place (e.g, German Beer Garden, French Cafe, English Pub, etc.). I think the essence of what we want student unions to be is there, but there isn't a reference to higher education that stood out to me.