Finished reading Ray Oldenburgs’s The Great Good Place, where he originally coined the term ‘Third Place’ that I use to describe part of our approach as Stichting Lokaal. Less based on research than I had hoped and expected, the book does provide many examples that are both identifiable and food for thought. With the American suburbs as distopian reference, the book reviews the old Main Street, French bistro, English pub, German biergarten (also the imported biergartens in New York, those vibrant communities of immigrants from all nationalities) and others places that each may exemplify that ideal ‘third place’. When you remember that the book was first published in 1989, the outdated view on gender roles and the social acceptation of daily alcohol use can be seen in perspective. As with Carolyn Steel’s reference to ‘food desserts’ in her book Hungry City, it struck me once again that our little country - even its ‘vinex wijken’ - are not much like America’s suburbs. Still, our way of life has an increasing resemblance to theirs, with all the focus on work, individualism, personal development and money making that provides less and less space (mental, physical as well as financial) for vibrant local communities, where people regardless age, class, gender or colour hang out together.

I only read Part I of this book and skimmed the rest very quickly. In Part I he defines "third place" and explains it's benefits and how we've lost it in American culture. In Part II he describes several examples of third places past and present around the world, and in Part III he discusses some miscellaneous issues related to third places and ends with a call to restore them (mainly by creating spaces for them in our neighborhoods and cities).

The premise in Part I is that third places – the local pub or other "hang-out" that is not work and not home, is vital to our personal contentment and to the health of society. Third places provide space for people of different social classes to mix in a more or less egalitarian way, a place to develop casual, non-burdensome friendships (as opposed to thinking that a spouse or one close friend should meet all our emotional needs), promote civil behavior (due to providing harmless stress relief, etc.) and even strengthen democracy. Oldenburg believes that our suburban life has led to an unhealthy level of isolation because neighborhoods are zoned to prohibit informal gathering spaces that can become third places. Providing the space is crucial because third places need to arise organically; they cannot be "organized."

As other Goodreads readers have said, there are some problems with this book. First, it is screaming for an update in our internet age, but I believe there are people studying "virtual third places" so maybe someone will write the sequel soon. Second, he is very male-centric, though I don't think he's as blatantly sexist as some reviewers have said. The problem is not so much that he is anti-woman as it is that he is sometimes oblivious to the problem of women's lack of access to these third places, and at other times acknowledges it but seems to minimize it. (And by the way, Mr. Oldenburg: a place where women have to bring their children along when they gather is NOT a third place by your definition! It is, at best, a 1st place/3rd place hybrid.)

But his real concern and the point of this book is that these third places are lacking for everyone, male and female, in American culture. His description of the pleasures and benefits of third places in Part I certainly convinced me that this is something I would love to have in any city I lived in.

It took me a year to read it for a reason

+: the author is right, third places are crucial elements of happy society
-: chauvinistic, significantly biased towards social drinking establishments, contains a lot of repetitions which don't add anything new to the idea, lacks academic research references

This book is too long but I found it to have a lot of truth in it. Suburbia has given many people access to homes and other high standards of living. However, this lifestyle has come at a cost and I do think that the sense of community that used to exist is rapidly being sacrificed to the streamlined Starbucks of the world. Oldenberg doesn't provide any solutions for this problem. He merely studies the problem and its effects. Very interesting.

Bloviating, culturally myopic, racist, and dull.

I don't really buy the idea the author is selling, and anyway he isn't selling it to me but to the American readers. That aside, as a homebody and an introvert, it is simply difficult for me to imagine how important the third places are. Obviously I need to think in context of my surrounding for it to make sense, and the only third places that I can think of in Malaysia are those nameless "gerai makan" and Mamak restaurants. And I can't imagine lauding the invigorating impact of those places to the society, in the next ten years or ever. As the author put it, I am one of those people who are likely to view those places as "melepak" (loitering) along with the negative connotation with it. Basically, I am a lost cause.

I do agree with some of the author's points and I do think there are interesting ideas here. That the society has become a consumer society, to the point consumerism is subconsciously seen as "solving" our problems (when you're stressed out, you cheer yourself up by ordering craps from Shopee), is something I agree about. The impact of cars in how we live (urban planners making it so shops and conveniences are located at a distance you can't conveniently walk to, so we're driving everywhere) is a reform point many have been raising. Like Eixample in Barcelona which is aiming to more or less become carless. But as a whole, I don't believe that the third place is the cure-all that will solve all the problems the author claims it will.

There are also discrepancies and contradictions in his arguments, as far as I can see. One of the characteristics of a third place according to the author is it acts as a leveler. Everyone can come and be treated as equal when they go to a third place, regardless of their social standing. And yet, in the chapter he dedicated to the English pub as his example of third place, the customers were said to be segregated, there were areas where certain class of people went to so they didn't have to mingle with the great unwashed at the other part of the pub. This kind of contradiction occurs many times in the examples of third places the author listed. One could presume the characteristics were there just as a guide, except the author made a point that a third place had to have all those characteristics or they didn't count (in his attempt to exclude the likes of Nazi's beer halls from his perfect picture of a third place).

I picked up the book partly because of the mention of bookstore but there is barely any mention of it as a third place. Instead it's all talks about drinking. The social lubricant. I don't drink so another reason why this book and its idea don't speak to me. But I think the author even insisted that drinking didn't lead to drunk driving and traffic accident, and that's just overreaching.

Also, if you are a woman, the book may disagree with you at some levels. For me personally, the idea that my partner needs to spend hours at Mamak every day to invigorate himself is just as bad as saying "Bros before hoes". And while I agree that maybe it's not good for a couple to be glued to each other 24/7, the author makes it sound as if spending hours with your spouse is so emotionally taxing and socially debilitating on a man. There is a lot of lamenting for the loss of men's places.

I am sure there is something to be garnered here especially by the urban planners. But I am just not sold on the idea.

I am writing my master's thesis on the disappearance of third places in my hometown and, therefore, I wanted to fully read the work that introduced third places to a wider audience. I was also confused as to why some of the publications I found during my research process mentioned barely anything about Oldenburg's thoughts on the matter.
Now I know why.

After having read through it a few times in the course of my writing process, I can say with certainty that Oldenburg builds a reasonable framework that other researchers can use to analyze third spaces.

HOWEVER

Good god, I get that he was almost 60 when he released The Great Good Place originally but wow - this man is the personification of "back in my day!". There are so many insane and also just wrong things to be found in this book that simply baffle me. I truly don't know how this man obtained a PhD.
The sexism that sadly covers each and every chapter is just sad. Women are to blame for all of the bars closing down. Feminists took over a bar and ruined it (would they not ... appropriate it so they could feel comfortable in it -like, you know, one of the criteria of a third place?). Women don't work so they don't need third spaces. I get that this was written in the late 1980s but even back then this was a bad take. Secondly, I am reading the third edition of this book that was published after his death in 2022 and he did find the time to add a foreword for it. Nothing about the sexism, though.
His whole thing about "togetherness" and how spending time with the person you married is actually bad for your relationship is another banger. The heterosexual jail this man must have felt he was in.
Then there is one completely out of context remark about how homosexuality arises from high competition male spaces which does not go anywhere. It truly feels like he inserts himself into his book (even more than usual) just to say "I am a blatant homophobe".
Lastly, his insistence that there are no alcoholics in third places ever (well maybe one or two) and that this type of customer would be thrown out immediately is laughable. I get that the argument he wants to convey is that conversation is the main activity of every third place but you could also present contra arguments to that and try to debunk them instead of going full denial?

To sum up, the first ~200 pages of this book are somewhat well written and present a convincing argument and scholarly framework for analyzing third spaces. I am going to build on it in my thesis and I am grateful that such a base work exists. Don't read past the example chapters, though.

After Elise read this book and liked it, I had high expectations. I had just finished reading "Bowling Alone" and was excited to continue reading on the topic of community (see also "Little Chapel On The River"). Ultimately, though, I felt pretty disappointed in this book. In contrast to Robert Putnam, Oldenburg makes very little effort to incorporate academic research into his book. He may well be a highly skilled sociologist, but his totally casual style ends up making him seem more fly-by-night than Putnam. Thus his argument seems fairly sentimental--which does not mean it's not worthwhile, but perhaps does mean that it would be better expressed in fiction or memoir form. Certainly Wendy Bounds is essentially making the same argument in "Little Chapel", and I find that book much more meaningful.

One point that I can't avoid making is that I also found Oldenburg to be pretty off-puttingly chauvinist. (I was surprised to find that I was more upset by this than Elise was!) The "third place" is traditionally a male-dominated hangout, and RO makes only token attempts to address gender disparities in the past and going forward (which to me is even worse than not addressing them at all). He often comments on how the presence of a spouse may inhibit a person's interactions with others in the third place, but his characterizations of those inhibitions are clearly, if implicitly, stereotypically female. Perhaps relatedly, RO also makes one (fairly offhanded) remark about homosexuality that I found pretty offensive.

A Great Good Place or “third place” as Ray Oldenburg coined is a meeting place where people can gather and put aside the stresses and concerns of home and work (first and second places). As the United States made its entry into a post World War II era, these community gathering places such as taverns, coffee shops, and cafes began to diminish from civilization. The local pub or tavern was replaced with the comforts of television and living rooms. The private dwelling had slowly taken center stage. There was no longer as much of a need to go out carousing, drinking, and relaxing with fellow regulars and neighbors at the local tavern.

What the Great Good Places does is promotes these local establishments and gets into the history of the “third place” and its importance in how we build and function in a society. Any City Planner would be remiss if this book does not hold a position on their book shelf. Oldenburg takes the reader on a history course through German beer gardens, main streets, English pubs, French cafes, American taverns, and classic coffeehouses to explain their importance in social life and the city landscape. These are places that neighbors could walk to, meet with regulars, and discuss the coming and goings of daily life.

This was a very detailed book and written more as a text book on social gathering places. Oldenburg’s explanation of these places’ benefits helps promote their importance for incorporating them into modern life. Thinking about third place in my own community in Spokane, Wa - there are a few of these places within short walking distance of my home. Perhaps being this book was written in the late 80s, the call from Oldenburg has been heeded and these gathering places are now more prevalent today than when the book was written. We have perhaps even gotten back to pre World War II levels.

I would be curious to know Oldenburg’s thoughts on where we are as a society in terms of social connection. While we are certainly more connected now than ever before through social media, how often are we meeting face to face with one another? At the time of his writing, Americans were spending 90% of their leisure time at home. And why not? Our homes were made larger and filled with endless devices to keep us occupied. And with the inclusion of Amazon and home delivery, we can just about survive without ever leaving our homes. Perhaps we hit a peak of time spent at home and the more we begin to feel that “cabin fever” set in, the more likely we are to go in search of a third place.

With Covid-19 sweeping across the globe, we may have found value in third places more than ever before. Our homes were acting as both dwelling and workspace. Third places were nonexistent or limited in many capacities. If people are confined to their homes and continue to use them as workspaces, then we’ll need our third places more than ever before.

I highly recommend the book for anyone that enjoys a low-light classic, local dive bar, the local coffee shop, or for anyone that simply enjoys bellying up to the bar to converse with their favorite bartender. Whether in America or elsewhere, we need this book now more than ever before. I highly recommend it. It may not be one you read word for word, but a good one to reference and revisit from the shelf every now and then.

If I had to review when I read the first 100 pages, I would’ve given this five stars. However, I’m frankly shocked at the sexism in this book. I’m not being hyperbolic—I can’t remember a time I’ve ever felt so shoved out of a narrative. The third place belongs to all of us—I truly believe that—but Oldenburg means “us” as in “us boys.” I truly felt sorry for his wife reading this because of how he depicted women to be nothing more than a burden to their husband or a mandatory caretaker whose third place is nowhere at all—we should be home raising children. And if you don’t want children? You’re the reason the country is facing a massive crisis in community; not the infrastructure! There’s even a few startling jabs that tavern culture in America suffers because people don’t hire hot barmaids (where is Ray going? I’m surrounded by hot female bartender friends?) and that women SHOULD be a sex object so men have something to miss. Women are discussed as old nags who are jealous of the third place, but if I were Mrs. O, I would be delighted if my husband would leave me the fuck alone. Oldenburg also dismisses homosexuality by claiming intimacy between men deletes any erotic feelings because there’s “no competition” and therefore refreshes men’s zest to get to a woman STAT after a night with the boys. I hate to break it to you, Ray, but some of those beloved bars you celebrate are GAY. Also kind of flabbergasted by the white washing in this book. People of color are never discussed, and all third place examples are heavily Anglo Saxon with a quick nod to Arabic coffeehouses before merrily skipping along. Lastly, I enjoy a drink, but Oldenburg is seemingly insulted with our culture moving away from alcohol dependency. My parents met at AA, but they had plenty of third places throughout their 26 year marriage—coffee shops, a deaf club, their church’s social nights…but Oldenburg gets frustrated even discussing coffeeshops not providing enough “social lubricants.” It’s frustrating. I really thought I would love this book because I do believe we need a Third Place. I just want one where I’m welcomed.

I was super disappointed in this book. I'm sure in part because it's now 2024 trying to read a book written in 1989 when so many other events have happened and the internet and social media are where they are in the world. Either way, this was recommended to me YEARS AGO and I was finally able to find a copy in a college library to read. I was expecting it to be like my college freshman honors course book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community but instead got something more bland. There was less about understanding the places and diving in to who goes, for what reason, and how to continue to create these "great good places" and more about, well, nothing in particular. It felt like a rehash of one bent which is that the world needs third spaces-- ones that aren't work and aren't home (and he explains what roles those two places play) but generally focuses on a few picked places from history like a coffeehouse or the German bier garten but doesn't spend time developing what those who go to these third spaces get from them and why we need to always be in pursuit of them.

It felt like one long rant against Americans without any helpful tools to move past this isolation and solitary world that Americans have created for themselves. Unhelpful. I wanted to be inspired but it came up extremely short.