Third Places Are Where We Keep Each Other Company, Especially in Moments of Loneliness
What They Are (Not)—and How to Find Them. Plus, a Few Examples Around the World
Hi! Thanks for your support, I hope you’ll resonate with this issue! A quick reminder on upcoming events, both diving into the topic of masculinity, loneliness, and connection. Join this Thursday’s monthly online gathering at 20:00 CET or get your ticket for the male-only Berlin event on April 17. I’m also planning a next one in Madrid (open to all) on May 12, so stay tuned. 💛
Where did they go? Those places where we can simply be, without agenda or social conditioned performances, and where we meet at the edges of our own worlds.
Where the ways of being are defined but implicit enough to leave spaciousness for serendipity. Where your acts of service count more than your membership status, and where strangers cross paths with regulars through conversation or simply acknowledging each other’s presence.
Third places—open, accessible, and that break down social siloes to put people in touch with each other.
They’re not marketing “real community” in response to curing the loneliness epidemic because they know it sells.
They don’t manifest as most co-living spaces that capitalize on the housing crisis nor co-working offices that serve mediocre coffee and not-so-hot desks for anyone who can pay the monthly fee.
They’re not a shopping mall. They’re not Soho House. They’re most definitely not Starbucks.
They are where the essence of community along the Latin origin word communis—common, public, shared by all or many—comes to live by nature. Where contribution, not consumption is key.
Where we can be alone, together, and keep each other company—even in our shared loneliness.
As Ray Oldenburg writes in The Great Good Place, the third place is not home and not work, but in a neutral ground where individuals may come and go as they please, where no one is required to host, and where all feel at home and comfortable. They are “levelers by nature,” he points out, as they’re accessible to everyone without a form of “being in the club,” exclusion, or the algorithmic bubble phenomenon we all know too well.
Further, he notes that a third place is meant to invite people with its warmth: “Warmth emerges out of friendliness, support, and mutual concern. It radiates from the combination of cheerfulness and companionship, and it enhances the sense of being alive.”
In the past, such places might have been religious, spiritual, and community centers—or the good old market square.
Today, in the face of a worldwide decline in religion, and most big cities struggling with a housing crisis, urbanization, and high density of traffic and population, public spaces, in general, have become perceived as unnecessary: why keep, them if you can capitalize on them?
Another trend has been hostile architecture that has crept into our urban environments, making it increasingly impossible for public life to thrive, and, further exacerbating the challenging circumstances for those most vulnerable like houseless or homeless people.
Oh, and cafés? If you happen to find one that has managed not to blend into the generic chain of the Instagrammable, Scandi-minimalist, white-tile coffee shop you can find in every big city around the world, which writer Kyle Chayka describes as “authentically connected to the new network of digital geography,” keep them your secret. Some might still hold to the idea of public social places of conversation and connection, which by the way also inspired the original independent coworking spaces movement—pre-WeWork and the like.
A silver lining: Some cities are increasingly invovled in contributing to navigating the loneliness crisis and the importance of bringing back public third places. As Tony Matthews, senior lecturer on urban planning at the University of Griffith, Australia puts it:
“You can ignore the issue of loneliness and you can ignore the antidote via the built environment of creating third places. But you're ignoring a burgeoning, population-level health problem that's getting worse year on year, especially over the last 10 to 20 years in the wealthier economies. In a sense, it's an investment in not just the immediate urban domain, but long-term in public health.”
In a conversation with Barcelona’s director of the city’s strategy against loneliness, Carme Pollina Tarrés emphasizes their approach of focusing on interventions and initiatives “al nivel del barrio,” on the micro-level of neighborhoods.
With initiatives like uniting children and elderly on the exploration of loneliness and others, as well as the much-celebrated Superblocks, turning three-by-three blocks as green shared-use space by 2030, Barcelona has been one of the leading inspirations on how to center the idea of third places within a highly densely populated city, focusing on connection, sustainable mobility, and the ecological transition overall.
Third places and the potential interactions between people who are local, visiting, or passing by the area, have the potential to resurface intimacy and familiarity in large, hostile, and anonymous cities. They can spur a village-like feeling that might have the potential to root people back into the realities of other people’s lives outside their own. They might help reinstate social trust by creating micro-interactions and deeper relationships between strangers, neighbors, citizens, and residents.
Where to find them?
Here’s a start of a list—some are permanent, others temporary, most of them physical, others virtual. Not all are free but never obnoxiously exclusive.
Your local library. Or pub (did you know it stems from “public house”?). Or gym.
Reading Rhythms, a non-book club in New York City where strangers gather to read silently for an hour and chat about the books they brought.
All-day-cafés in Austin, where “guests can relax and be enriched by meaningful connections, natural environments, and genuinely warm hospitality.”
Tokyo’s Restaurant of Mistaken Orders that specifically creates connections with patients with dementia who are serving a surprise with every order.
Tascas in Portugal, mercados in Spain, night markets in Taiwan, tacquerías in Mexico, Bunny Chao in South Africa, Kottu Roti in Sri Lanka, and wherever you can get [your favorite street food] joints, is probably a good option.
Initiatives like Taco Tuesdays where local restaurants offer a deal for a meal of a few bucks, offering those with limited income a communal eating experience.
Amsterdam’s The Offline Club and Dutch slow check-outs that revive human interactions amid the age of speedy credit-card-only self-checkouts.
The Hyper Voisins of Paris reviving their neighborhood with about 2,000 people attending weekly brunches, lunches, and dinners, and helping each other out in one of the many WhatsApp groups.
Berlin’s former airport turned public park, Tempelhofer Feld, where you’ll find kite-flying kids and adults, raves, concerts, people hanging out, a community garden, and so much more.
Your volunteering service of choice. Be it helping out in a soup kitchen once in a while or a nationwide act like Rwanda’s Umuganda on every last Saturday of the month between 8:00-11:00, as an initiative that started immediately after independence in 1962.
Not my forté, but I heard that Fortnite, Minecraft, or any gaming community of your choice can equally become a third space for you. This accounts for any special interest community living on WhatsApp, Discord, or [the platform of your choice].
For me, it would be either the Cultmother Tarot community I’m part of via Patreon, or Yoga with Adriene that makes yoga more accessible to people around the world and has kept its ethos and commitment over all these years.
Vienna’s intergenerational co-housing project, Gleis 21, with an average price of 600 EUR per month, with residents ranging from 27-72, who first came up with the concept, raised money and oversaw the construction of the building.
Blending the best of rural and urban living in Germany is the cooperative-led KoDorf, featuring small, ecologically built wooden houses nestled among expansive communal areas, all centered around prioritizing the common good in both daily life and work.
Japan’s initiative in collaboration with Muji, entices young people to move to its Danchi neighborhoods of elderly populations.
Lastly, I want to highlight the Citizens’ Assembly, which in many ways is a response to reimagining our democratic processes—with a community-centered lens. Either initiated by a group of citizens or by the government, a Citizens’ Assembly is a group of people selected by lottery, learning and collaborating through facilitated deliberation to find common ground on values-based matters. They serve as genuine people-focused spaces essential to democracy, especially during times of deep social fragmentation and increasing authoritarian populism.
So, what is your third place?
And maybe see you at one of the third places I’m attempting to create with our monthly online gatherings (free) and in-person events that connect us through our shared experience of loneliness in community!
The Reading Rhythms concept sounds lovely!