Saturday, January 10, 2009

.. and third place goes to ...?

Third Place

What's this 'third place'? If --

The first place is home.
The second place is work.
The third place is your social meeting place.

According to Wikipedia:

The third place is a term used in the concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. In his influential book The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg (1989, 1991) argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place. He identifies third places, or "great good 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.

So what's your third place? Blogspere, restaurant, coffee shop, bed? Oh, I guess 'bed' would constitute home...

Which brings me to my second question: Is 'home' really first place any more? I mean, I would LIKE it to be first place but does the definition of 'place' mean where we spend a lot of time? If that's the case, then work becomes 'first place'...yuck!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting post. I guess for me it's "other people's homes" but I don't know if that counts or not. I don't have a "Cheers" type hang-out place.

And I agree with the "work-yuck"!