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Thinkin' about so-called third places (self.general)

submitted 1 year ago by ElectroVagrant to c/general

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

You may have heard of third places before, but in case it's new to you, they're essentially community spaces where you can chill & socialize...Like here, I suppose! But typically they refer to in-person community spaces.

Does your area of the world still have a number of these, or are they in the decline? Do you know if your in-person communities are trying to establish or renovate theirs to help people connect or reconnect with one another?

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[–] gon 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I moved to the city for Uni almost 5 years ago, but I was born and raised on a very small island.

Back home, there weren't many "third places", but they were well frequented: coffee shops/cafes, or the gas station and accompanying coffee shop.

Now, I don't know... I live in a gated condo. We do have shared spaces that often have people, more during certain times of year though.

In the city, there's some very nice parks full of people, mostly older folk. Relatively close to where I live, about a 30 minute walk, there's a really nice park by the beach. There's some businesses there (restaurants and bars), as well as a football field and a basketball hoop (just the 1). THAT place is full of people all year round. It's VERY nice, I go there on my walks.

I know that recently some parks were renovated nearby... And there's been some attempts to invest in better public infrastructure of that sort. I'm not sure if that's a sign that those places were/are on the decline, or if it's more like "the more the better".

I can tell you, however, that it was a bit of a shock to move from a very rural place to the city. People interact differently with each other... They're more distant. Still, I think there's plenty of spots for all kinds of people all around me, and tons of people hanging about said places.

I live in Porto, Portugal. I've heard it's very different in the US though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Cities have a problem in that people can only have a limited number of friends before they can't keep up. In rural areas you can keep up with more people so you make friends, in urban areas you are likely to have enough friends and thus not interested in making more.

There are many advantages to city life. But for a new comer making friends is not one. You have to search out places to make friends. If you are not careful your friends list can become filled with people just like you, instead of the diverse group a rural area would force on you. (Of course rural areas attract less diversity in the first place. However diversity is multi dimensional so you can be diverse in some, but exclude others, make sure you have religious and non religious friends; Democrats and Republicans...)