The return of the ‘third places’

By: J. David Chapman/July 22, 2021

I often use the term “built environment.” The built environment is a man-made structure, feature, amenity, or facility viewed collectively as an environment in which people live, work and play. The built environment creates the backdrop, or setting, for the ever-important “third place.” In community building, the “third place” refers to the social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home (first place) and work (second place.) Examples of “third places” are cafes, churches, clubs, bars, pubs, gyms, parks, or libraries.

The pandemic created a unique, blurred, socially strange environment between home and work, and had all but eliminated the third places in our life. As we return to our workplaces and redevelop some sort of separation between home and work, we are craving those third places and the social interaction that naturally occurs in these places. They are very different than the interactions at home with family and work with co-workers.

You may recognize the value of these third places personally, but what about their value to the community? We frequently refer to the third place when attracting an innovative workforce to our community. Employees have a desire to communicate, network, and collaborate with like-minded creative and intelligent peers. I am convinced that they will seek out a community that will provide these opportunities within walking distance of their first and second places.

Oklahoma has been painstakingly slow to build the type of mixed-use real estate projects that typically work well in accommodating convenient third places. This is due to our history of automobile dependency, lack of density in our cities, and little accessibility to walking and biking. Because of their desirability, price-per-square-foot values of real estate are highest in these developments. While we have been busy trying to make accommodations for millennials and their desire for third places, I think many of us in the built environment, such as architects, developers and builders, have failed to realize the importance to other generations.

I am thrilled to be back in my usual third places and reconnecting with my social circle. I hope that every generation will have a renewed appreciation for their third place and anxiously call up their friends and family and meet at their favorite church, coffee shop, bar, pub, cafe, club, gym, park, or library.

J. David Chapman is an associate professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu).