Ray Oldenburg is an urban sociologist who writes about the importance of informal public gathering places. In his book The Great Good Place , Oldenburg demonstrates how and why these places are essential to community and public life, arguing that bars, coffee shops, general stores, and other "third places" are central to local democracy and community vitality. In exploring how these places work and the various roles they serve, Oldenburg offers Placemaking tools and insight that can be useful to individuals and communities everywhere.
He also works as a consultant to entrepreneurs, community and urban planners, churches, and others seeking to create quality places within their communities. Third Places. Throughout his work, and particularly in his book Celebrating The Third Place , Oldenburg identifies "third places" as the public places on neutral ground where people can gather and interact.
In contrast to first places home and second places work , third places allow people to put aside their concerns and simply enjoy the company and conversation around them. Third places "host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.
Providing the foundation for a functioning democracy, these spaces promote social equity by leveling the status of guests, providing a setting for grassroots politics, creating habits of public association, and offering psychological support to individuals and communities. Where the means and facilities for relaxation and leisure are not publicly shared, they become the objects of private ownership and consumption.
Third places are nothing more than informal public gathering places. The phrase 'third places' derives from considering our homes to be the 'first' places in our lives, and our work places the 'second. Though a radically different kind of setting for a home, the third place is remarkably similar to a good home in the psychological comfort and support that it extends They are the heart of a community's social vitality, the grassroots of democracy, but sadly, they constitute a diminishing aspect of the American social landscape.
