How to create a community living room

A ‘third place’ outside home and work can make a neighbourhood vibrant

The French town of Courseullessur-Mer marches to a slower rhythm I found when I visited on a market day in summer. The coastal community of 4,000 in the Basse-Normandie region was the landing site for Canadian troops who stormed Juno Beach on D-Day in June 1944. Stalls of fresh produce and household goods were manned by merchants who recognized their patrons and greeted them joyfully.

At lunchtime I went to a restaurant in the main square called Brasserie du Marché. The place had few formalities; there were no tablecloths and the walls were made bright by three large windows facing the square. The patrons knew each other. There were conversations across tables, exchanges of anecdotes and laughter. An older man noticed me and brought me into the conversation. His eyes lit up when he found out I was Canadian, acknowledging that our army had liberated this town.

You could not help but be part of the moment and the place. It felt more like a social hangout than a dining local. I recognized that this spot was a “third place” essential to taking community relations to the next level.

In his book The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg refers to such venues — those that are not associated with dwelling or work — as third places. I like such spots and scout out and patronize them whenever I can. They are one of the secret ingredients that turn a cold, sterile neighbourhood into a vibrant social web.

A third place is where you can see and feel the pulse of a spot, where people can walk away from daily habits, regimented routines and even their own usual self. They are independently operated and not part of an international chain of restaurants, cafés, fastfood outlets or sites of exquisite gourmet dining. Their interiors are often worn out and shabbylooking, yet kept clean by owners who are devoted to the comfort of their patrons.

Visitors are not tied to any particular schedule or timetable, and they are welcome to come and go as they please. Third places are also levellers. Patrons’ wealth, social status or even educational background are immaterial and of secondary importance. Oldenburg suggests that the charm and flavour of the patrons’ personality, irrespective of their station in life, are what count.

Conversations in third places are lively, colourful and engaging. Being attentive to others, not hurting someone’s feelings, talking about topics of interest to all will make for a lively exchange. The noise level and the music played allow everyone to listen at ease and avoid shouting. They are also places to which one can go alone at any time of day and find an acquaintance. And those acquaintances are regulars who set a tone of conviviality that make a stranger most welcome.

Some tend to believe that planning and building a neighbourhood is a technical endeavour: subdividing land, drawing roads and building homes. That’s true, yet the mark of successful communities can also be measured by the depth of the social web that matures years after occupancy. Third places are valuable instruments in building such webs.

Having a neighbourhood hub to which people can walk or bike, a main street of sorts, is a good start. The hub can be a square or a street with a distinct character. Humanly scaled, with stores under apartments, car-free, and featuring benches and trees will be some characteristics that will go on to form a community living room for all to enjoy.

Social media and digital communication seem to have taken a central role in our lives. For some, Skype or FaceTime has become the main way of seeing and talking with one another. Good as these means are in connecting people from the far edges of the world, they are by no means a replacement for personal face-to-face encounters at home.

They are one of the secret ingredients that turn a cold, sterile neighbourhood into a vibrant social web.