“What suburbia cries for are the means for people to gather easily, inexpensively, regularly and pleasurably—a ‘place on the corner,’ real life alternatives to television, easy escapes from the cabin fever of marriage and family life that do not necessitate getting into an automobile.”
So said Ray Oldenburg, the late author of “The Great Good Place,” where he coined the term “third place” and argued for the importance of these informal public gathering places that support “the regular, voluntary, informal and happily associated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.” He said third places are on neutral ground, promote social equity and encourage both conversation and a kind of playful leisure where strangers and regulars intermix and feel a genuine sense of belonging to something more than the hamster wheel of home to work and back again.
My kid and I talk a lot about how third places have grown fewer and farther between. She had her 20th birthday in April, putting her squarely in Gen Z, while my birth year falls smack-dab in the middle of Gen X, giving us different perspectives. The third spaces of my teen years—the “strip” lined with souped-up cars every Saturday night, the arcade, the pizza places and burger joints, the mall—were largely not pay-to-play, and for her, that hasn’t really been the case.
So, as I’ve read through the stories in this issue of Recreation Management, with its focus on design, I was pleased to take note of how often recreational spaces are intentionally including this kind of opportunity for people of all ages, from all walks of life. Informal gathering spaces are being added to facilities of all kinds where people—strangers and regulars alike—can get together for a little conversation and connection. Rec centers, sports facilities, pools and parks all offer plenty of active and formal opportunities, but also can engender those happenstance conversations with strangers, neighbors and friends. And it’s in the great melting pot of these and other third places that we grow our sense of belonging to something more than family and work crew—that civic-minded, community-minded sense that we’re all in this together.
See you out there!
Emily Tipping
Editorial Director,
Recreation Management
[email protected]
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