I'd be interested to see an update to this study in the coming years. Starbucks has been pivoting towards take out and mobile orders and removing tables and chairs entirely from some of its stores lately.
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What are some examples of real third places in major US cities?
As a teetotaling atheist, I moved to Berlin for the universities and night clubs, as there are tons of social events associated with both.
I keep hearing this and completely disagree.
I assert that within an hour of any location in the entire united states not so remote that supplies have to be delivered by airplane (so excluding rural Alaska and outlying territorial possessions) there are numerous third spaces.
As a benchmark I use the small town of 400 that you've never heard of abutting Hoosier National Forest in VERY rural southern Indiana that my grandparents lived in, which I spent every summer for over a decade in.
Within a 40-ish minute drive of that small town there are:
* two astronomy clubs: Evansville Astronomical Society and Louisville Astronomical Society
* two amateur radio clubs: Clark County Amateur Radio Club and Bullitt Amateur Radio Society
* four public libraries: Crawford, Paoli, Harrison County, Washington Carnegie. The closest library (15 minutes) has a makerspace with an Epilog laser, Brother Needle Embroidery Machine, Roland Large Format Printer, BambuLabs Carbon 3d Printer, Elegoo Saturn SLA 3d Printer, Cricut, Sewing machine, and Serger. If you're like me and didn't know what a Serger is, it is a machine that sews borders and embroidery onto things.
Plus an Anime & Manga club (in rural southern indiana!??!) scrapbooking, sewing, and multiple book clubs.
* five conservation clubs: Duff, Huntingburg, Mariah Hill, Livonia, and Schnellville (these are shooting, fishing, and hiking clubs in case you're not aware)
* too many to list civic organizations like rotary clubs, elks, masons, veterans, and other civic clubs
* a volunteer fire department in every county and most medium-sized towns (all of which need members ALL of the time)
There is even a small community-run performing arts center if you want to audition for plays, hold a performance, or be a volunteer crewmember: https://www.hayswoodtheatre.org/support-hayswood
All of this in rural, impoverished, isolated Southern Indiana where the Amish and Mennonites own all of the stores, the grain drying bins of neighboring farms keep you up at night, and cellphone coverage tapers off to a teasing and deceptive worse than nothing.
I am a middle-aged man.
I take the middle-aged man loneliness epidemic very seriously.
I am also a bit of a dick: get off your fucking phone and Xbox, quit bitching about the lack of "third places", and go out and do something.
There is a group, doing something, who wants you to join them in every county of every state of the entire United States.
You are not suffering from a lack of opportunities; you are suffering from a lack of imagination and motivation.
> I am also a bit of a dick
With an attitude like this, you realize you're part of the male loneliness problem, right?
How many times do people show up to your clubs and organizations one time and then never show up again?
Think on it
A big part of the "male loneliness epidemic" is that a lot of men are huge assholes for no reason
I say this not to defend the self-confessed dick, but to encourage everyone else to show up to stuff. People are nicer when they're hanging out and doing something they love.
The world doesn’t really work that way anymore. Also this only works if you want to hang out in third places with retirees.
(For instance, amateur radio is dying out because most of the oldtimers are dying off and not being replaced because everyone uses the internet now. I got some great deals on equipment from estate sales as a result.)
Also, third places are places. You listed groups. Groups need places to gather, and people who want to go to third places need places that are always places, not just an hour or two on the third saturday of the month. That’s not enough for social cohesion.