Third places and neighborhood entrepreneurship (2024)

I’m pretty sure I would move to a city anywhere in the world based primarily on the availability of high quality 24 hour third places.

With an American-centric view, how do you deal with homeless people using them as shelter? Like, Korea/Japan have those cheap gaming booths, but that would never work in America because of the aforementioned issue. The want would be an exclusive third place that has the people you'd want to meet with.

> With an American-centric view, how do you deal with homeless people using them as shelter?

I don't think it's a concern, first of all. Second, store owners will kick out non-paying customers as they have since time immemorial. You might as well ask how someone deals with pan handlers at the intersection on the way to their drive-through Starbucks. If the person is just sitting in a corner not bothering anyone, maybe someone will buy them a coffee, or maybe they'll be annoyed that it's too loud and leave, or perhaps they just look homeless but they're just mistaken for your run of the mill startup founder?

There are also lots of homeless people in other parts of the world. How do people in Paris or London deal with them? I don't understand why this exists an American-centric view here for such a general concern. Homelessness isn't unique to the United States, yet virtually every country on the planet has coffee shops you can walk into.

I'm the person you responded to originally. The biggest issue is "kick out non-paying customers". Mechanisms exist to do so, but: 1. What if someone bought a coffee? You face potential litigation for discrimination. 2. Minimum wage employees shouldn't have to play the role of enforcers. A mentally-ill/drug-addled person can snap and cause a dangerous scene. Getting the cops involved is possible, but time-consuming and a pain. 3. It's America-centric because we don't have a social safety net for people. In the UK, for example, the NHS has avenues for people to get treated. The homeless you do run into tend to pose a much lower risk, anecdotally.

We do have coffee shops, but as others have pointed out, many are getting rid of seating. I think a membership route is the only way to enforce something more exclusive.

> 1. What if someone bought a coffee?

Why would you kick out a paying customer? If they're being disruptive though it doesn't matter if they bought a coffee. Businesses can deny services and request that you leave the premises. There is very little potential for litigation for discrimination.

> 2. Minimum wage employees shouldn't have to play the role of enforcers. A mentally-ill/drug-addled person can snap and cause a dangerous scene. Getting the cops involved is possible, but time-consuming and a pain.

That's just life. There's no other answer here. You deal with uncomfortable situations and that's all there is to it.

> It's America-centric because we don't have a social safety net for people. In the UK, for example, the NHS has avenues for people to get treated. The homeless you do run into tend to pose a much lower risk, anecdotally.

It would be nice if you knew more about the social services that we do offer people in the United States before claiming something like this. Turn off the news and social media and do your own research instead.

Now that isn't to say (and I honestly don't know one way or the other) that social services in the United States couldn't be better, but that's tangential to the conversation in my opinion.

> We do have coffee shops, but as others have pointed out, many are getting rid of seating. I think a membership route is the only way to enforce something more exclusive.

I emphatically say fuck that. I will go to a coffee shop, buy coffee, sit down and enjoy the coffee, preferably with some friends, and if someone wants to come in and be belligerent and threatening then we'll call the cops or participate in physically kicking them out if the employees can't handle it. I will not live in a world where others are going to disrupt normal everyday experiences and ruin everyone else's lives just because they're assholes or drugged out. Nope. Not me and not the town where I live.