The past few decades have brought us a whole genre of social science and journalism telling of the decline of social cohesiveness in American life, and perhaps most notably among young people. In the early 1990s, the late sociologist Ray Oldenburg pointed to the disappearance of the cafes, bars and coffeehouses — “Third Places,” he called them — that used to provide relief from the strictures and intensities of work and home. A few years later, the political scientist Robert Putnam became famous for his book Bowling Alone, which made the simple but compelling argument that a form of recreation which once delivered camaraderie for close-knit clusters of friends had morphed into a sport catering mostly to solitary individuals.
More recently, the literature of social decline has become, to say the least, more apocalyptic. In 2023, then-Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a frightening report asserting that America was experiencing an “epidemic of loneliness.” Around the same time, the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published The Anxious Generation, in which he argued that social media was depriving adolescents of ordinary human relationships and leading to an outbreak of depression. And just recently, the journalist Derek Thompson produced a much-discussed magazine article calling the present age the “anti-social century.” Some recent research has found that Americans age 18-29 are actually lonelier than their elders.
It’s not my purpose to disparage any of this evidence. In general, I’m sympathetic to it. I’m interested in what sorts of institutions might evolve to restore some semblance of ordinary sociability and physical closeness. There’s no question that we have lost many of the gathering places of yesteryear. Do we have an opportunity to evolve some new ones?
For a brief time, it looked as if coffeehouses might take on some of this clubhouse function. Starbucks and other caffeinating establishments provided comfortable tables and chairs at which patrons could spend relaxing time, sometimes even hours, simply interacting with each other. In the past few years, though, those social outlets have started to erode. Partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and partly to the commercial demands of owners and managers, the cozy coffeehouse atmosphere has been replaced by a grab-and-go mentality in which furniture has been removed and patrons are discouraged from lingering very long.
All of this raises a difficult but intriguing question: Are there any Third Places on the horizon to serve as substitutes for the old ones? I’m well aware that there’s no single answer to that question. But there are some interesting partial answers.
Libraries are one of them.
IT’S FAIRLY WELL KNOWN BY NOW that most public libraries have reorganized their collections in the past decade, removing old books that nobody was checking out and adjusting to the digital world. What’s less well known is that many of them have taken on a much broader role. They have become community centers — Third Places, if you like.
When I walk into the Central Library in Arlington, Va., where I live, I find that a large chunk of the second floor has been turned into a collective workshop, a welcoming space whose motto is “Sit and Make With Us.” In addition to the usual book clubs and classes, it offers “social crafting events” and “garment sewist meetups.” It calls itself “The Incubator” and touts its regular artist exhibitions. This is a long way from anything Ray Oldenburg imagined as a Third Place. It’s not a pub or a cafe. But it’s a genuine gathering place for locals of various ages who might be vulnerable to the epidemic of loneliness that Vivek Murthy was talking about.
Quite a few libraries around the country have been trying things similar to the ones Arlington has been trying, or at least doing something parallel to them. They have gradually been making themselves into community centers, or even self-described Third Places.
An increasing number of libraries have opened cafes to enhance local sociability. Many have placed job-training centers inside. Seattle’s main library contains a satellite City Hall. Charlotte is building an indoor-outdoor library to attract more customers year-round. The library in Athens, Ga., has become a focal point for chess tournaments. The one in Evanston, Ill., has created an entire sports complex. The library in Upper Providence Township in Pennsylvania has installed a teaching kitchen.
The managers of some of these libraries are frank about their conscious desire to recreate the world of community sociability whose disappearance Oldenburg and others have lamented. The head of the King County Library System, Dominica Myers, has said that she “sees libraries continuing to lean into their role as a dynamic Third Place.” The King County, Wash., library system declared in almost identical words last year that “libraries nationwide are leaning into the idea of creating a ‘third place’ … where people live, learn, and connect with each other.”
WHILE ALL THIS IS HAPPENING, some of the most deeply entrenched rules of behavior have been modified, or even eliminated. We are all familiar with the stereotype of the fussy librarian telling patrons to keep quiet. That tradition is disappearing. Nearly all libraries still have designated quiet rooms, but everywhere else in the building silence is no longer a requirement. People can talk as much as they want to.
But perhaps the most striking compliment to the library/Third Place idea is the phenomenon of once-conventional bars turning their spaces, or large portions of them, into libraries that encourage group socializing. Some of the believers in this concept have come to wax rhapsodic about it. “Booze and books just go together,” the critic Graham Averill exulted a few years ago. “Imagine yourself drinking Scotch in a place with many leather-bound books that smells of rich mahogany.”
It’s a fad, not a solution to the problems of “the anti-social century.” It isn’t what Ray Oldenburg had in mind. But I think he would be glad to see it.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
