What Happened to All the Third Places?

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Throughout the past few years, I’ve been fortunate enough to have spent considerable time in a number of diverse locations, ranging from small town middle America, to college campuses, to major cities like London & Los Angeles, and a variety of places in between.

I’ve always been in awe of how people living in different parts of the world are impacted by their surroundings – where they hang out with friends, where they go to meet new people, what they do for fun on a Saturday night, the pace at which they go about their lives, what they do for work, how they work, what matters to them.

It’s hard to describe, but there’s something inherently special about our physical location – where we live – that indirectly impacts who we are.

Then, last week, I heard a word for the first time that perfectly characterized this idea – “milieu.”

Milieu is a French word that loosely translates to “environment” or “surroundings,” and it refers to the people, physical, and social conditions & events in which someone is located.

Of course the French have a word for this concept! We are, in many ways, a function of our milieu – our surroundings have a profound impact on our health, our values, and what we consider to be "normal."

What the Heck is Milieu?

Milieu is some combination of our physical & social surroundings, and the cultural norms that arise from that interplay. Physical surroundings are the placement of objects, colors, weather (temperature, sunshine, precipitation), nature, geographic phenomena, and any other natural elements not determined by the presence of other people. Social surroundings include the people & culture in our immediate environment.

At home, we have family, roommates, and neighbors. At work or school, we have coworkers, clients, classmates, teachers, and various others with whom we might interact.

But outside of home or work/school, there’s a concept called “third places” – shared spaces like cafés, bars, gyms, churches, libraries, stores, and parks. These third places predominantly make up our social lives. Whether we visit them with friends or alone, with the intention of meeting new people or not, third places are ingrained in what it means to be human.

How Milieu has Evolved

For most of human history, our social circle was constrained to those who were physically near us. If not, we needed to travel to interact with people in different places.

Innovations in transportation made this easier – we could now expand our social circle, but we still had to physically move.

Later, innovations in communication (and eventually the internet) made this drastically simpler – we could now expand our social environment (to practically anywhere in the world) without changing our own physical environment at all.

In a world where it’s easier than ever to digitally share ideas (social), we share location (physical) less and less.

When we only communicate digitally, it’s harder to understand those with whom we interact – their ways of life, values, norms, cultural differences, cultural similarities. Something about in-person connection, whether it be body language, gestures, intonation, physical touch, “vibes,” or the sharing of the same "physical milieu" at a given time, is nearly impossible to replicate over a computer.

The Death of Third Places

For most of modern history, third places have acted as cornerstones to our social fabric, places to “share physical milieu,” so to speak.

Think British pubs. Italian cafés. Spas in East Asia. Yoga studios in Los Angeles. Speakeasies in New York. Hammams in Morocco. Public Parks. The YMCAs of our childhood. More niche areas like climbing gyms, libraries, or dog parks.

Then in 2020, the pandemic nearly wiped out all in-person interaction, and with it, the existence of many third places. In big cities, it can be a struggle to find places to just be together. Even as “normal” life has returned, a culture obsessed with productivity and status has led many of us to lose touch with our third places. And as home and work have blended to one, coupled with more and more time spent on digital devices, our need for a third place is greater than ever before.

Recent studies have shown that Americans, particularly young people, are increasingly lonely. A shocking 63% of young adults (ages 18-25) suffer from loneliness and symptoms of anxiety & depression. And it’s not just remote work — social media, Netflix, dating apps, and other forms of cheap dopamine hits make it all too easy to never leave the comforts of our own homes.

Third places enable us to seek out and re-establish the social bonds and feelings of connectedness that were once part of daily life.

What I Love About Third Places

Personally, everywhere I go (whether home or traveling), I always seek out a local coffee shop as a third place. There’s something universally inviting about coffee shops – nearly every culture has them, they serve glorious caffeine-infused beverages, and they’re places to share the physical presence of others (whether you talk to them or not). If you visit the same coffee shop multiple times, you’ll start to notice themes – the “regulars” who visit every day; the “lingerers” who hang out, with no place to be and chatting away; the “scramblers” always in a rush to be somewhere.

There’s a universal realness of coffee shops (and third places generally) that creates a small window into the everyday lives of the people there, a realness that you’re unlikely to find in fancy restaurants or country clubs.

And beyond purely observing others, third places create the opportunity for spontaneity. I’m a believer that spontaneity is a large part of what makes life exciting, and it’s something we’ve lost in the last few years.

College campuses seem to have nailed the creation of third places. Designed with spontaneity in mind, where every student has “their spots” – where they study, where they eat, where they hang between classes, places for entertainment & extracurriculars, where they chill in the evenings with friends – college is where many of us make our most meaningful lifelong relationships. Colleges provide a glimmer of hope that effective third places are a real possibility.

Some cities & cultures do this better than others. For example, Copenhagen is full of public parks, and they have “board game cafés” (exactly what they sound like – places where you hang out and play board games with friends, where they serve snacks, coffee, beer, or whatever makes you feel at home).

Returning to the concept of milieu, board game cafés are a great example of the physical (cold, dark winters of Denmark) shaping the social (a culture of hanging out in cozy indoor places with friends and strangers alike).

When done right, third places connect us.

Why We Need Third Places

We need third places to better understand those around us.

We need third places to force us to talk to strangers.

We need third places to meet new people.

We need third places to reconnect with old friends.

We need third places as common places of respite, no matter where we are in the world.

We need third places to share physical experiences with others.

We need third places for serendipity and spontaneity.

In this changing world, we must be more intentional about seeking out third places. Paradoxically, while the digitization of everything has made it easier for us to interact with anyone, where we choose to physically be in the world and who we surround ourselves with are more important than ever before.

What is your third place? Where can we add third places in everyday life?

While a common answer might be for the government to fund more third places, and future cities should be designed with this idea in mind, I don’t think relying on our public institutions alone is the answer. Somewhere out there, an entrepreneur is working to create more third places in our daily lives, and it might just be the next billion dollar business.

Brought to you from the coffee shop down the street, just after making friends with an Australian guy who pops in every Sunday morning.

-Owen

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