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.

I read this book for a class on the material culture of public houses in England. The discussion of third places was certainly fascinating, but I had a very hard time seeing past the sexist attitude of the author. I found myself getting very mad and needing to walk away from the book; however, I am very glad I read it. I think the concept of the third place is very relevant and it has certainly come in handy when researching and writing about historic third places. I recommend reading it while breathing deeply.

Oldenburg observes that Americans are very good at making time and space for "home" life and "work" life, but that the third space in which one socializes casually with friends is rapidly disappearing: the local pub, the neighborhood bar, the village cafe are no longer places to gather and unwind as more and more people seek this social fulfillment by buying new entertainment for their own homes. While the overall points are different, Oldenburg covers a lot of the same ground that Peter Lovenheim does in In the Neighborhood. (Nobody talks to anybody anymore.) I appreciate that Oldenburg doesn't blame this solely on technology, although that may be because this book was written before the prevalence of social media. I found myself nodding along with most of what Oldenburg was writing, but I think I agree with it more in theory. I am a pretty outgoing person, but I never go to the faculty room during lunch at school, and I recall thinking throughout all of college, "Man, I would love to be alone right now." If I could talk with Oldenburg, I would ask him why he didn't include more study of the community of churches. The only mention of them in the book is to point out that they are not what he considers to be a third space.
"In the other kinds of public buildings they are the audiences, watchers of political, religious, dramatic, cinematic, instructional, or athletic spectacles. But within the four walls of the pub, once a man has bought or been bought a glass of beer, he has entered an environment in which he is participator rather than spectator."
I would not dispute the political, dramatic, instructional, or dramatic spectacles, although the goal of pedagogy and democracy is that the student is a participant in learning. Those "spectacles" are formal, however, and not always healthy for social recharge. I do think religious and athletic settings can be more effective third spaces than the pub, however.
Some churches encourage spectating, rather than participating, but many of our strongest friendships have been formed through and during church events, and the many benefits Oldenburg attributes to the pub community are found in a strong church community.
Similarly, I am sure that certain fanbases are perfectly content to simply watch their teams while they sip wine from their cushioned seats in Los Angeles. But going to a Bills game requires full participation

I would recommend skimming the first 200 pages and deep reading the last 100. This book was difficult to get through for the first 2/3 since it covered “third places” around the world and the writing felt pretentious. How many different ways can one talk about cafes, taverns and Main Street? Apparently a lot. Some sentences in the early stages were so complex that it took me multiple reads to understand. I think the part 1 topic could’ve been covered in half as many pages. The last section of the book is the criticism of US city planning to keep communities away from one another. This is where I found the book to be very informative and a saving grace from the first part. To summarize Americans have been conditioned to intentionally not have a third place so we’re easier to control. Without a common community meeting place, citizens focus their time and attention on home and work only. This limits civic engagement and diversity. It also requires entertainment be brought into the home which makes it easier to monetize and capitalize on the loneliness Americans face by not having a common place to interact in communities. The suburban designed life is a disaster and has created a culture of individualism. Cars are the only tool to escape which is also disastrous. Until city planners do better at mixed use neighborhoods, suburban life will be an inadequate representation of the “good life”.

Still relevant today, albeit that it was written over forty years ago. Some of the language and ideas are, of course, not what would be expected today, but the concept of us as a society needing places where we can be together is absolutely valid.