The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community

If activity between buildings is missing, the lower end of the contact scale also disappears. The varied transitional forms between being alone and being together have disappeared. The boundaries between isolation and contact become sharper – people are either alone or else with others on a relatively demanding and exacting level. Life between buil

We strive to make a place where people feel at home,

Imagine a downtown area with small-scale parks, nice shops, clean and safe streets, and signage that encourages exercise. This is the kind of place where a family wants to bring kids, where retirees and college students alike want to socialize, and where street entertainers naturally gravitate to perform and get paid. These places exist in many cit

Ray Oldenberg introduced the idea of the third place in his 1989 book, "The Great Good Place". He writes that, "Third places thrive best in locales where community life is casual, where walking takes people to more destinations than cars, and where there's an interesting diversity of people in the neighborhood." He says, "I