I’m hoping to eventually open something like a board game cafe to help address this for my hometown. Far from a perfect solution, but I would like to get as close to a “third place” community-oriented vibe as possible without going totally broke, at least.
It’s actually pretty easy to book libraries for after hours events. There’s a small cost associated because it requires staff to work outside normal hours.
I can’t even afford to rent a room during normal working hours though. Plus, I’m pretty sure my local library doesn’t offer evening bookings.
Asterisk: I can technically afford it, but I’m not paying like $160/mo to host a weekly club at the library. That defeats the whole point of a third space.
Paying for something doesn’t defeat the point of a third place. Enterprising and profit do. People covering just the cost of materials required for their activity is not that bad a thing.
I would rather more basic activities be covered by taxes too though.
Same. The homeless population has unfortunately made libraries where I live pretty dangerous places and I can only imagine how much worse that would be if they were open all night. My city doesn’t seem to care at all about people shooting up and ruining public spaces.
We should absolutely have safe housing for homeless people with UBI and transitional programs. We should also offer mental health and substance abuse treatment – and in extreme cases humane involuntary treatment for people that are a danger to themselves and others.
And none of this should take place in shared, public spaces for the safety and dignity of everyone involved. This is a failure of society and needs to be treated as such. Placing the burden on individuals isn’t the solution. Expecting public spaces designed for other uses to pick the slack of a broken societal safety net is insane.
You can’t have humane involuntary treatment. In cases where somebody is threatening someone else, I would say involuntary treatment is called for. But we shouldn’t decide when its okay to imprison people for exercising their bodily autonomy.
Yeah, nothing against that idea in theory, but in practice, places like that end up full of urine-soaked drug addicts that are high on meth, making it an extremely unattractive place to hang out and socialize.
Denver’s Union station downtown is a perfect example. It’s a “public private” space that tries to stay open late on weekends to cater to the crowd but ends up being a hellhole.
places like that end up full of urine-soaked drug addicts that are high on meth,
You’re putting all homeless into a box. Not all are homeless because they are addicts. Some are legitimately forgotten by the system and for different reasons lost job/domestic abuse/no fam/disability/health issue/financial issues. And even at that : addiction is also a symptom of a shit society. Not the same issue as what causes other homeless people but there can be more than one problem in a poorly designed system that comes up with the same result of being homeless.
Society built on capitalistic ideals for more than just survival as a goal has an extremely narrow scope for who it is interested in serving.
With the exception of your first sentence (me putting homeless people in a box, which I’m not sure if you’re making a pun or not), all of other the things you said are correct and I agree with. The things you said and the things I said are not mutually exclusive.
In other words, not all homeless are the same, not all are drug addicts, and society should do better at preventing homelessness, and you might still have a late-night library filled with urine-soaked drug addicts.
You’re putting all homeless into a box. Not all are homeless because they are addicts.
Are we not allowed to make generalizations at all? I promise you if you open a homeless center in any major city you will find out very quick that psycho behavior comes with homeless people at scale. It’s a guarantee that you will have meth addicts ruin whatever infrastructure you provide them. It doesn’t matter that there are some good homeless people when you are almost guaranteed to face the bad ones.
Crazy idea : let’s use churches to accommodate homeless people since you can find them fucking everywhere, surely they’re not used after 8pm, and that’s basically the point of them in the first place, no?
Then they should provide access to toilets. Where are they going when they want to take a piss? Also isn’t helping the poor in anyway they can a charitable act revered by their religion?
Every major religion reveres helping the needy, for example in Islam, zakat, giving money for charity (if you have enough wealth to afford it) is a requirement.
I get the idea and I think it’s wonderful but have you ever been to a homeless shelter? They need staff to break up fights, protect women, clean up the mess made by drug users and alcoholics, and all sorts of other difficult things your average old lady pew duster isn’t capable of dealing with.
Most churches can’t keep the lights on. For every LDS or RCC there are a thousand places on the verge of bankruptcy. Every atheist I know makes a big deal about the big players but not one has shown me the raw the numbers that proves that if they paid corporate tax rates it would be mean more than a few more cruise missiles used to blow up weddings in Pakistan.
Government can’t do that job either. We already have homeless shelters. I don’t know why people talk like this is a new idea. We have homeless shelters in our society. They’re government funded in some cases, or church-funded in other cases.
We still have homeless people. We do provide free shelter and food to people. And we still have people sleeping on the street.
We’ve been doing extended openings 0700-2200 for several years in Oslo. As do libraries all over Norway. You need to use your library-card or app to open the door, so there’s some control (data lives for 7 days). We have very little problems - maybe there’s some homeless there but they are as welcome as anyone else. We do have security guard, or one that strays between branches. And yes we do have homeless people in Oslo.
Go Norway! I whish we had a library law here in Germany like you do - our places are underfunded and understaffed… a lot of my colleagues are very passionate about their jobs, we could do so much more with our local libraries.
A lot of Norwegian libraries are underfunded as well.
In Oslo public library (Deichman) we’ve been given more money the last 10 years than previously. And we have shown what that money can do.
During Covid shutdown the Library was what kept open except for two weeks - that really showed what kind of back-bone we were for Oslo.
It was very tough on our frontline workers as we were swamped with students ignoring any precautions. Working in libraries are still low paying compared to the education
It has a Café, a movie room, a band room, dj equipment, 3d printers, sewing machine corner, children playground and so much more…the most amazing library I have ever seen
Winter is hitting my little town in Sweden and I have to say that your suggestion is looking increasingly appealing. It’s not the cold. It’s not the rain we get now in place of snow thanks to global warming. It’s not even the darkness. It’s the gloomy all-encompassing grey.
It’s like all life and joy leaves the world until spring hits in May.
And the most popular one: the podcast studio. I’d like to point out that the other 20-ish libraries we have besides of Bjørvika are amazing too! You should see the one we open in Holmlia dec 1st. It’s even got a separate youth-library next to the normal one.
Not sure where you live, but I have actually been to a fair few libraries like this in the US. Usually if you want a really cool library, you’ll have to go to the main one in the state. If not that, the highest reviewed one. Of course, it all depends where you are, as different regions seem to care about having nice libraries at different amounts.
Don’t got to tell me, I’ve held my coffee cup aloft like some kind of warding torch - proof that I’d paid a couple dollars to be here - back when I was hard up.
But if you’ve got money, it is a lot cheaper than a bar or a resto
I read something about the Carnegie libraries in Pittsburgh basically doing this way back when. Apparently it was popular for people to get off work, go home, clean up, eat, then head out to the library. There was stuff there for kids like story tellers, tutors, art workshops, and more. For adults, quiet places for people who just wanted to read, places for study, areas for people to discuss various subjects, classes on various skills (painting, pottery, carpentry, etc) and the ground floor main area had a general social space. They served coffee, food trucks set up outside, and some inside. It was a popular place for people who didn’t want to go to the bar.
A combination of factors. Lower funding, suburbanization, growing means for home entertainment, growing wages sending people to more expensive options, etc.
One thing that happened is society forgot they can go do these things at libraries today.
Everything he listed is on the calendar of a great number of city libraries, if you check their websites! (Source: I built and maintained the websites for several libraries)
Well, first off, “free” is not a requirement for a 3rd place, but even if we accept that the best third places are free, that doesn’t make ones where money is involved bad by default.
The difference is between paying admission or membership dues like gyms usually require vs a public space where there’s an expectation you will buy something but it’s not a requirement for entry, and it’s not the only thing to do there.
Stores don’t work because the purpose of being there is to buy things, so there’s nothing else to do, and no other acceptable behavior beyond maybe some chit chat.
But at a cafe, the seating area is designed for you to just chill and do other things besides ponder what you’re going to buy next. The seating areas are open and there’s an expectation a purchase is made, but you can order nothing while a person with you orders something, or you can order something small and cheap, and get the same level of access as anyone. That’s a very low barrier of entry for a place that is purpose made for social activity.
Same is true of bars. You need to buy something, sure, but the place is designed for social activity, not just reading the menu.
I feel like this video (link below) does a good job of explaining why a lot of current third places aren’t quite meeting the need, or just don’t really fit the definition of third places.
I can think of a few places that meet most of the criteria near me, but there’s very few. The closest ones are probably the gaming shops, where you can show up and just hang out playing games with friends for free - but those are kind of geared towards specific activities, so you can’t always show up and just hang out with others whenever, as there are usually only regulars on certain days of the week, and often they are involved only in playing a game, not casual conversation.
I’ve got a lively tabletop store that has a ton of tables. It’s got stuff that interests me on multiple nights a week, and a chill regular crowd.
Then I’ve got an evening running group. Admittedly they are about to close down until next year soon.
I do admit I’m less of a night owl nowadays, and more about spending my daytime hours doing active activities. Those hours are so slambooked I am putting things in a calender organizer so I don’t doublebook my time. The nights where I’m alone I usually feel pretty beat from the daytime, and ready to just relax at home contently.
I suppose what I’m saying is that part of the blame lies on society, but some of it is learned helplessness. Making a witty Twitter post might help vent but it won’t make new social hubs fall out of the sky for you. If you’re itching to do things then go do things. Everything I’m currently into, I started out by just showing up on my own and making friends there. If you’ve got friends who only socialize by drinking at bars, don’t be shocked when the only activities seem to be bar oriented.
I agree with the gist of your post. I would add, though, that your tabletop store is a store. There is an expectation that you spend money, whether its explicit or just implied by the fact that its their space and you're taking it up. I think we need spaces where people can exist without the expectation of commerce.
People bemoan being isolated. I mentioned one of many activities as an example of how to solve being isolated.
An indoors social space to just exist would be great. Complaining about it on the internet doesn’t solve anybody’s loneliness. We can still do that of course, complaining on the internet is tradition, but we can also posit solutions that actually make people less lonely.
In my experience, people socialize more quickly with strangers when there is a shared thread in a group, rather than just an open space. Hence suggesting going and doing something rather than just going to a place. Go run, go hike, go play frisbee, find whatever meetup online thing your area has. Some of it is free, some of it you have to put some money into. But life isn’t a choice between barhopping and crippling loneliness.
The whole problem is that people don’t have the money to engage in spaces that require purchases. That’s the entire reason 3rd spaces have died. When people no longer have any disposable income they can’t go out any longer.
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