“Capitalism Gone Bad”: 17 People Remember Third Places That Have Disappeared
Article created by: Ieva Pečiulytė
Sociologists have noticed that people spend most of their time in one of three places. The first is their home, the second is where they work, and the third is a common area where they socialize. Some examples of the latter include libraries, parks, churches, coffee shops, and community centers, which are very important for human relationships.
However, these third places are disappearing due to factors like digitalization, the cost of living, and the pandemic. To attract more attention to their importance, older adults are sharing their favorite ‘hangout spots’ that should be preserved for the sake of our mental health. Scroll down to find them, and let us know what you think about the topic in the comments below!
While you’re at it, don’t forget to check out a conversation with internet culture writerNathan Allebach,who went viral in 2022 after posting a TikTok video on this topic.
Librarian here. Unless you live in one of the areas where libraries are suddenly hated and are having their funding cut to shreds, you can go there. Please come in. It’s free and warm and there are free books and computers and you only have to pay if you return a book late or want to print something.
If you lived through the 80’s and 90’s, the mall was very much a public plaza for seeing your friends, group dates, or just stretching your legs.
Now, did we still spend money a lot of the time? Sure. If 11 year old me had money in my pocket, I was buying a snack at the food court, maybe some Magic cards or a CD.
But probably about half the trips I went to the mall from ages 11-14, I bought nothing. And my friends with less money didn’t feel out of place, because we were there to walk around, talk, and play cards.
It is the same in my country Malaysia as well. You cant even enter some parks without paying an entrance fee and you’re not going to be able to get there without a car. A public beach in my state is going to start development into another private tourist hotel any day now and we won’t even be able to see the sunset without paying ridiculous amounts of money as parking fee. I wish we just had somewhere to chill and meet people for free.
I miss the bookstores that had a cafe. A place to explore and find new authors, relax and enjoy a coffee with other literary minded people. Talk with staff about what was new and exciting. All gone now.
I miss them so much. This may sound gross, but I miss the smell of the VHSs and DVDs. I miss going in either with a plan or without one and simply browsing to find a random movie to watch. I miss picking out candy and pulling out my Blockbuster card. It was a highlight of my week, especially each weekend.
“Why aren’t arcades a thing anymore?” I wonder as I pre-order another game on Steam. The door bell rings. Amazon delivery. “We used to have so much fun at malls. I wonder why they all closed down. Probably a conspiracy to remove all third places…” The phrase is familiar, something I’ve been seeing a lot online, and I spend a lot of time online. After all that’s where all my friends are. Who would want to go outside and meet people? It’s 2024. I play my RPGs on Discord now. Makes it so much easier than having to go to a cafe or someone else’s home. Cafes are all closing down now anyway, you wouldn’t find one if you wanted to. I don’t want to, obviously, but hypothetically.
Dance halls, and dancing in general used to be massively popular. If you were in an American town of more than 1000 or so people you could count on at least one social dance a week, often more.
Soda fountains.
I recently read a story about a girl in the 1930s who enjoyed a strawberry soda at a soda fountain for a nickel. I looked it up, and minimum wage in 1930 was 25 cents an hour. So at minimum, someone would need to work for twelve minutes to afford one strawberry soda at a soda fountain.
Counterpoint, current federal minimum wage is $7.25. Priced proportionaly, that soda should cost $1.25. In my area, it should cost $3.20 based on state minimum wage. But I can’t even get a basic black coffee for that price from the local coffee shops. A bottled 20 oz soda costs about $3 from the local liquor store, but I’m sure it’s not as good as the fresh soda served from the fountain. And the store is designed for me to grab what I want out of the cooler, pay, and leave.
So it’s not just that there’s no places we can’t be at and not spend money. It’s that the money we’re expected to spend is out of proportion to, say, what some mid-century teens were expected to spend while hanging out at the local soda fountain.
Music (the media, not instruments) stores, especially the ones that let you sample music!
Bookstores aren’t gone but there are far less of them.
“We complain children and teens don’t go outside but we have totslly removed every single thing for them to do that isn’t digital” is probably the pinnacle of why i struggle with maintaining a healthy living routine, along with the fact that money gets tighter every month.
And what are you going to do? Are you going to advocate for third places? Are you going to attend municipal council meetings? Will you sign petitions? Protest? Are you going to contact your municipality and tell them?
Because if you do things will change. Third spaces will come back.
The dog park is my third space. It turned from me going there to watch dogs alone to help with mental health, to now I have a dog of my own and watching her play with all her friends brings me such joy.
I think the analogies fall flat, but I agree with the sentiment.
ESPECIALLY with children. I feel like when I grew up the world was much more friendly to me as a child.
Fast food places had play areas, we had cool places like FunScape, Disney Quest, Discovery Zone.
Theaters had massive arcade sections (some still do).
All these places just do not exist anymore for kids. Their bound to their houses. I mean sure they could go outside but some places are just endless suburb streets of private property. No woods, no rivers, no forts to build.
Kids need their own place to go.
I feel this a lot. I live in an eastern european city, close to a million people, and i often don’t wanna go home after uni cuz it’s boring and lonely, but there’s quite literally nothing for me to do. I end up wandering city streets buying myself small things like pressed leaf tea and coffee and candy bars just to feel something, just to feel like I’ve got something to do. Its kinda sad.
In my literature class we had a poem about front porches, and discussed their impact on the community as places to greet friends and neighbors, hang out and talked about how modern houses have pretty well eliminated this in many places.
Discussed so much evidence that society has shifted dramatically into a less face to face, friendly place. Much less community. I barely know my neighbors, and most of my classmates said the same.
For kids/teens, the woods. I spent so much time wandering the woods behind my house when I was a kid and going to kegger parties as a teen, and all those woods are gone now. It’s so upsetting that there’s so little nature left and that kids today don’t get to have those experiences.
I grew up in a somewhat rural area. The only 3rd place I can think of was the hobby shop in the mall. We would play yugioh, magic, DND, ect, and just chill there all day. But once we started getting our own apartments / houses, we would mostly hang out there. That continues to this day, although we are a bit older.
