What Third Spaces Teach Us About Real Human Connection

Some things just are, and some aren’t. For example, your home is.  It is a space that exists for you to be, to cook, to clean, to relax, and to store your belongings.  It is defined by its borders, walls, and function. Your workplace, unless you work at home, is similarly a place defined by its function. But what about the other spaces? The spaces that do not have a designated function until people arrive and inject meaning into them? Enter the third space.

The spaces that encompass not exactly ‘everything else’ but are the areas that allow for social connection and the creation of art and ideas. The third spaces of the world are hard to describe; they sit like new words waiting for definition, but one thing is certain – they are vital to a functioning social community.

What Are Third Spaces and Why Do They Matter?

In the 1980s, American sociologist Ray Oldenburg officially coined the term ‘third spaces’ in his book The Great Good Place. According to Oldenburg, the third place is that which exists outside the home (the first space) and the workplace (the second space). These social surroundings, or third spaces, are places where people can spend time exchanging ideas, enjoying social company, and building communities.

In fact, third spaces are perhaps the reason why Europe seems to be the travel destination for many of those living in Western countries. Countries like Australia and North America are not designed for pedestrians and are thus somewhat devoid of the abundance of third spaces in their cities. Travelers are often in awe of the ease and prevalence of the third space in people-centric cities they travel to.

Civilians aren’t restricted to the areas designated for their existence; they are now designing the rulebook. They are sprawled in dimly-lit alleyways with half-drunken bottles of red wine, sitting tensely on park benches with a stressful game of chess, making their own parameters for vital, and unexpected, human connection.

Europe’s Secret: Cities Designed for Connection

Parisians are notoriously known for their tiny living apartments, or ‘shoeboxes’. Many Parisians have a single room that includes a bed, a kitchenette, and sometimes a bathroom. People could not exist like this unless there were also third spaces. Winter or summer, sun or rain, you’ll find the Parisians sprawled on terrasses, parks, by the Canal Saint-Martin, creating their own spaces for connection.

You can sit at a brasserie and nurse a café espresso while reading your book, people-watching, maybe even while intermittently talking to the people at the table beside you. These spaces exist because you exist within them; they only arise when a person or a group of people enter them and provide them with meaning.

Designing Cities for People, Not Cars

Third spaces are seen most often in pedestrian-friendly cities, where the spaces are designed for people, not for cars. Yes, it makes transport and parking a little bit of a nightmare, but people-centric cities also create communities that are not restricted to private spaces. Making new social connections – whether this includes friends, romances, or just an acquaintance – must be carefully planned and considered in our modern age.

We have online dating and friend-making applications, workplaces, and bars where we expect to find a certain type of person. In third spaces, however, people are more likely to talk to the people sitting beside them. The third space is not closed; therefore could be understood as an open invitation for connection.

The Biology of Belonging: Why We Crave Community

We could draw it further back, to biology, by asking ourselves how humans are really meant to exist. Countless studies and scientific agreement drive home to us that humans are inherently social beings who crave connection. Like other social animals, we have always been designed for community living. Sure, we need solitary time, but our happiness depends strongly on a stable sense of community.  Third spaces allow for more casual connections, for building a community of people in our everyday lives.

No, these do not have to be the people you’d call your best friends, but perhaps the local owner of the wine bar at the end of your street, or your neighbors who always read in your local park with their little boy. The people who recognize you and make you feel seen and heard, and human. The people who give real, tangible meaning to the word ‘community.’

Third Spaces Through History: From Agoras to Instagram

There has rarely been a civilization in history that has not known the art of the third space. Almost all societal socializing, especially for the lower and middle classes, was done in outside spaces. In Ancient Rome, the forums served as social and economic hubs. Before this, in Ancient Greece, people gathered in large public spaces, known as ‘agoras,’ to host markets or assemblies. In modern cities, notably pedestrian-centric cities like Florence or Paris, the strong tradition of third spaces has continued.

When the Third Space Disappeared

A world without third spaces is an isolating one, as humanity found out during the 2019 pandemic. Italy, a country thriving with a community-based system of living, was one of the hardest hit. Being one of the first locations of a major COVID-19 outbreak, Italy entered a harsh and restrictive lockdown, meaning being almost completely limited to their first spaces. Perhaps for some other nations, this would have been more doable.

For cities used to life with third places, however, this was an adjustment that was anything but easy. The Italians resisted. They persisted and made themselves heard by finding a way to connect despite the isolation: through music. Videos emerged on social media of Italians hanging out their windows in the warm afternoons, singing songs and playing music for all the neighborhood to hear. Their musical protests against separation were not quiet, but they were joyful, loud, and human. 

This defiant persistence and creation of third places reminds us that, despite the changing of the times, the pandemic, and the challenges that face our societies, we persist. Humanity, like a little green weed between slabs of concrete, will always find the sun and continue to form our own boundaries for life and the pursuit of connection.