The concept of “third places”, coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in the late 1980s, refers to informal gathering places outside the home and workplace. Think coffee shops, bars, libraries, community centres – spaces that have traditionally served as hubs for social interaction and community building. 

But they are disappearing, according to a slew of recent reports, while the “art of hanging out” is also heading in the same direction. And when Starbucks says it’s “reclaiming the ‘third place’,” as mentioned in the New York Times, you know we’re really in trouble. 

The same article went on to quote Gwendolyn Purifoye, an assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame: “Public leisure space is critical for society. If you don’t build places to gather, it makes us more strange, and strangeness creates anxiety.”