The Third Place is a place of comfort that one finds when away from home or work. The author examines the importance of third places in American society. In the past, these places were a part of neighborhoods and accessible by a short walk. The author laments not only the disappearance of third places but also the emphasis upon reaching places only by automobile.

This was a fascinating read. Because it was published in 2000, it is a bit dated, and I would like to see the author revise his work to include how the ubiquity of computers, phones, and social media affect the Third Place and the new types of third places that have arisen since 2000.

This should've been a five-star rating, since I loved much of this, underlining like crazy and putting stars in the margins. Its basic premise is a (breezy, non-academic) analysis of the erosion of public space, with chapters on various examples of cultures that have (or did have) successful systems for encouraging public space, and community within those spaces. He's pretty biting about modern conditions, which I love! So there's a lot of useful insights here, but two things.

First, this originally came out in the late 1980s, with a reprint edition (the one I read) in 1999. Which makes this a case study in the popular, well-read book that really explicates something important but is almost completely ignored by the culture at large. Most of the problems he describes have gotten much worse in the ensuing years. I thought a lot about Third Places (or near-Third Places) that existed when this book came out, but which have been destroyed by local urban "progress." It makes one wonder what's the point of anything! Sorry to be fatalistic, but there are many cases where everyone knows something is a problem, and yet it continues. There's actually a quote in the book about this: "why does failure succeed?" I guess maybe this is an angle to be explored about why we have useful answers to problems but there's a collective push to stop them being implemented.

Secondly, it definitely feels dated. Not its fault, because it is from an earlier time, but it's weird to read something from my adult life and think that! He does, as side notes, address racial segregation as a thing that negatively affected all of society, and mentions women being shut out of various kinds of public experience as similarly a problem, but these are side notes. The viewpoint very much assumes whiteness, maleness, and heteronormativity, that most of society is made up of cishet people, who are assumed to want to be married and have children. This assumption simplifies some of the arguments, since public spaces and communities haven't always been welcoming to non-white, non-cishet people. Some of the lack of community was created by white people who wanted to shut out others (like the documented incident that opens the book "The Sum of Us," when a community paved over its swimming pool rather than allow black children to swim in it). That nagging feeling of datedness just kind of kept me from being able to say "I loved it," although I did love a lot of the ideas, although I think the problems go deeper than this.

So interesting and captivating! Many great points were brought to my attention! However, at least half of this book left me leaning back with a concerned frown on my face, asking myself, “Isn’t this [insert line, chapter, phrase, joke]…kinda misogynistic?” Got a bit of whiplash bouncing so fast between some very modern, feminist thinking and suddenly to a very heteronormative, almost blatantly sexist comment. When the chapter on the sexes was 1) mostly about men 2) somewhat derogatory towards the impact on and from women in The Third Place. And not to mention what was virtually no mention of the LGBTQ community and their own creation of their Third Places, which started in the ‘50s.

I would love to see a modern revisitation to this book. The concept of The Third Place is timeless, but it’s evolution is one that ebbs and flows constantly. In a post-pandemic world, I would be fascinated to see how much as changed, for better and for worse— and especially with more insight involving women, LGBT communities, and diverse cultural, racial, and religious communities.

I realize it was written in 1989...but it was kind of incredibly heteronormative and extremely male focused. Interested to see what an updated version would look like in the current decade.