The great good place
by Ray Oldenburg · first published 1989
67% recommend33% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Introduces third places, the informal gathering spots like cafes and bars between home and work, and why they matter for community life. Suits readers interested in urban design, neighborhoods, and loneliness.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…the first one, because I'm coming to suggest a book that I immediately thought of as I got halfway through the article. If you want to read about human society and how much of it we're missing, read The Great Good Place, by Ray Oldenburg. (I believe it came out in the late 1980's.) There is a chapter on suburbia, and what an awful mess that has made of human sociability, particularly because you have to get in your car…
on “How the Car Keeps Americans Apart” ↗Recommended reading: Jane Jacobs "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" Ray Oldenburg "great good place" Booker T Washington: Up from Slavery I'd skip figuring out cities. Start with how to create neighborhoods that work? Where citizens can be educated, participate in their local government, and find…
on “New Cities” ↗Absolutely agree. I've been reading a lot about this recently, recommend: Lost Connections by Johann Hari The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg Better Together by Robert Putnam
on “Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?” ↗…is 'work', third is 'community'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place You don't _need_ a 'second place', but you may find it helpful to double down on the first and third. The original book, The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg, is a bit dated. It was written at the cusp of modern connected life (late 80s?). While it does bore a few faults, the concept has helped me immensely in being purposeful and direct in…
on “The WFH Folks” ↗CTRL+F "third place" -- take my upvote. Anyone suffering in the loneliness epidemic should have a copy of The Great Good Place, by Ray Oldenburg. The entire point is that you should be putting yourself into socially active areas in your community. This includes: a church, a local pub or coffee shop with regulars (ideally walking…
on “Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?” ↗…Kunstler: Geography of Nowhere The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing Streets for People: A Primer for Americans Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community
on “Why Loneliness Matters in the Social Age” ↗…surface area in there to meet someone. This is a product of America's lack of streets, we have roads not streets. Roads are for cars, streets are for people. Some good reading on this subject is, "The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community", and of course "Streets for People, A Primer for Americans".
on “The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult” ↗…as a solution to the transportation problem. Mass transit can be way more efficient and desirable, as well as allow pedestrians to take back city life. A great book on topics related to this is "The Great Good Place" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Good_Place_(Oldenbur...
on “Elon Musk says he has a green light to build a NY-Philly-Baltimore-DC hyperloop” ↗…and community. There are many reasons for this. There's probably books that focus on just this, but if you want a better idea of how city design has affected community living in general, I recommend The Great Good Place [0]. I read somewhere else in this thread that The Boring Company is obviously something intended for Mars. I am more ok with that idea, since it might be impossible to do anything other than underground…
on “Elon Musk's Promises and Goals for Tesla, SpaceX, and More” ↗…peak oil civilizational collapse speculation http://kunstler.com/writings/podcast/ Granola Shotgun https://granolashotgun.com/ http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/ I really enjoyed the books 'The Great Good Place' by Oldenberg , 'Streets are for People' by Rudufsky and the Geography of Nowhere by Kunstler
on “Ask HN: Who's starting new towns in the US?” ↗Very interesting. > Examples of third places include churches, cafes, clubs, public libraries, gyms, bookstores, stoops and parks. In his book The Great Good Place (1989), Ray Oldenburg argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place. I wonder if there is an online example as well…
on ““Why isn't chess popular in Japan?”” ↗…life experiences that shaped these values. 4. "Without such places, the urban area fails to nourish the kinds of relationships and the diversity of human contact that are the essence of the city." - The Great Good Place (1989) Oldenburg 5. The youngest "Boomers". 6. I've heard this attributed to the rise of high-stakes testing environments, but it could also be any number of other factors.
on “Slobbing out and giving up: why are so many people going ‘goblin mode’?” ↗The article references four books including "The Great Good Place" which originated the term along with the classic "Bowling Alone", which documents the decline of social connections in the United States. Additionally they interview four university professors who have…
on “What are third places? How do I find one?” ↗The third place is from 1989 book, The Great Good Place. Starbucks looks to have adopted it a while ago, at least 2008. But I have only heard it used by urbanists.
on “Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés” ↗