'Third places': The ways losing our local haunts hurts us (2021)
bbc.com
bbc.com
No mention of gyms, or sports, or hobbies. All three photos show boozing.
Going to the gym is also not cheap, and, even so, we're not all late 20s - early 30s people, us people in our 40s or in our 50s also need a nice place to hang out without getting physically exhausted in the process.
As for the hobbies, most of the "community" ones also require relatively more money to be spent, and, again, it pertains to a certain demographic.
Also my local gym is very popular with the 50+ crowd. There seems to be a large social aspect to it for them. Don’t knock it!
I can say that around here in downtown-ish Bucharest the annual subscription for a popular gym varies between 500 to 800 euros per yer, depending on the chosen plan/options, but you really do want to get the more expensive plans/options that are between 700-800 euros. That is if you pay all in advance, if you pay month by month or 3-months by 3-months (it's all so complicated) the costs are between 80 to 100 euros per month.
I agree though that all this may vary. As a man you may choose to "cheapen out" a little and choose less expensive gyms that are located further out or who attract a different kind of clientele, but that option may not be available for many women (as my partner is), unfortunately.
Or rather history? It's been Church or the Pub for a very very long time.
The other part of this is that a third places mixes people of different social strata, and you end up talking to them, getting a cross pollination of ideas.
A self selecting hobby group is not necessarily this.
A hackerspace may be more like this, or a community garden, but a competitive chess club? Probably no.
A gym? Cost, physical exertion immediately excludes a lot of society from participating.
"it's not fitness, it's life"
Even if it wasn't, most people are wearing headphones. Sustained conversation would be difficult.
For example, the alcohol, as brought into spotlight by 'Animats. It's rather well-known (if a little tough to admit for many people) that alcohol is the "social lubricant". The way it lowers inhibitions and "screens off" pent-up stress, helps people make connections, build and nurture friendships.
It's not the only way to do this, but it's a way that works, and scales well among and across social strata - a fact that's been recognized since time immemorial, and the millennia of culture built around drinking only reinforce its bonding effects.
Serious iron gyms are usually a lot more chatty than commercial / for everyone gyms.
None of them are like the pub though, the pub has no activity other than socialising, it's the entire point.
"going down to the local" means visiting one's nearest pub.
As for non-alcohol-based options, they could have used a picture of a coffee shop. But even then, coffee shops today are more like an assembly line for Ubereats orders.
Religious spaces have some extra spice, as does the local mall where middle schoolers do random shoplifting to be edgy.
This kind of stuff just won't happen if you have to drive to your local park. Cars and car-centric city design is a huge, huge part of the problem and lack of third spaces in my opinion.
"Car centric urban design" is the catch all ill and if we just fixed transit it would go away.
Except it won't, because all the social factors that make car centric urban design preferable will still be there.
But even compared to NYC the proliferation of parks and playgrounds is astounding. We thought we must live in a green paradise, but it really doesn't even rate (something like 14% tree cover; most major EU cities are > 20%).
I think stuff like this is changing. You're starting to see far less car-centric design, and there are little programs like NYC's request a tree. I worry a little about what self-driving cars will do the trend though, but maybe it's not a big deal?
In post-Soviet countries there is a concept of non-religious "palaces of culture", which also lost their ideological content and just host arts and crafts now. Albeit, they are less useful for just hanging out than they could be. Also, libraries.
I think it's just an issue of community. Like, evidently our community likes having nice stuff our kids can use.
Also it depends of city strategy> having marginalized only buildings/areas is a bad idea, that's why in states like baltics, social apartments(the new ones) are not separate full buildings, but just apartments spread evenly across the city, contributing to diluting concentration of marginalized people in one spot and 'social control' keeps these regions safe
Generally caring, welcoming are people drawn there and unlike, say, a gym, people have nothing but free time to socialize. The best way I’ve found to make meaningful relationships post-college.
Although, people may drink less, I think one factor get's regularly missed out of these reports, house prices in the UK have kept well ahead of wage increases for ages, and younger people can no longer afford to go out, but this is always phrased as people preferring staying in more.
For over 20 years, a small circle of friends had met at a coffeehouse to play games. For a long time, it was Magic: the Gathering, and then in later years it was gin rummy, Clue, Sequence, and all sorts of other board and card games. We met in a large, very social local coffeehouse, then when that closed down we moved to a Starbucks right on the main drag, and then I found a very cute college-oriented teahouse, off the beaten path, and it was there where we whiled away the hours in the before-times.
Then the lockdowns hit, and of course we could no longer meet. Unfortunately, our circle of friends had stabilized with me and two elderly folks, and one of them wasn't savvy enough with Zoom for us to feasibly meet online and do our thing.
For a while, I tried to play online games with the other friend, but it definitely wasn't the same. We couldn't see each other and we couldn't even text-chat while the games were being played, so it really defeated the social purpose of playing the games over a table and a cup of tea, just to solve all the problems of the world.
I still chat with that one friend over the phone, and I share links with her and whatnot, but our social group never recovered from the lockdowns. In fact, the teahouse shut down, never to return. We went our separate ways.
I was also dismayed at how church handled lockdowns. That fateful Easter 2020 was a livestream from a small chapel, with none of the faithful allowed to partake. Bishops around the world essentially canceled every public Mass and told us all to stay home. This was known in earlier days as "Interdict", and Interdict is traditionally wielded as a punishment against nations and rulers who are hostile to the Church. Interdict, or withholding the sacraments from the faithful, is intended to elicit a cry of rebellion from them, that they rise up and demand their religious rights. This is exactly what happened in Mexico in the Cristero Wars, when the atheist government expelled priests and forbade them even to confer baptism.
It took a while, but church did recover, at least my local parish did. They restored the picnic tables and chairs, they put back the holy water, they restarted Masses and allowed us to sing, they began holding public events and even serving food. I'm thankful that the lockdowns did not last forever, for them.
Unfortunately, for me, several social options have evaporated. I work from home now, although the nature of my remote work would allow me to hook up anywhere that has WiFi. I have gone to the library once in a while, when there's an issue at home. I really think libraries are great third places, and kudos to the municipalities that strive to make them welcoming and useful to taxpayers.
Thanks neoliberals.
My local municipal library has gone back and forth. It is on land which is technically Parks & Rec jurisdiction, and so it's patrolled by uniformed Park Rangers. There are strict rules about bathroom use and there is technically no sleeping allowed inside the library. During the lockdowns, of course, they were able to keep out the riffraff by mandating masks and doing curbside, online-facilitated book pickups.
But the whole neighborhood by the library is a mass of homeless hangout, especially the bus stops right nearby, and let me tell you, it's downright scary when bus stops are "owned" and squatted by a group of creeps who are drunk and/or on drugs and/or bent on violence. There is literally nowhere safe to sit in the shade and wait for an actual bus, because nobody at the stop intends to get on the bus at all. And, when you do board a bus, especially the free-fare ones, it's clogged with the same types of weirdos going to/from their daytime hangouts.
Personally for me, when I was homeless, libraries were a life saver, and I definitely hung out at libraries, which kept me (1) out of trouble, (2) safe from the weather, (3) connected to friends and family, and (4) occupied and not bored, and (5) no need to spend money. Of course, I was extremely careful about obeying all rules and regulations and not being caught out as homeless. Sleeping was mostly OK, and I didn't need to shower, shave, or brush teeth in the bathrooms, so that also helped.
So all these creature comforts and amenities attract people of lower economic class. Often it's really nice to use a lab computer, set your phone down while it's charging, get on the Internet and do some job searches. If there's a café in your library, then you can stay all day without leaving.
Even people who do have homes may prefer the library during the day. If they have obnoxious roommates, abusive family members, no A/C or heating, whatever, they can come to the library and enjoy all that, courtesy of the taxpayers.
As a counterpoint, pubs (particularly micropubs) and cafes in my area are thriving!