Lupine Publishers | Scholarly Journal Of Psychology And Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
One of the most influential place
theories, or conceptual frameworks that deal with the framing, activation and
management (as well as understanding) of the public realm, for which the coffee
shop, bookstore, taverna, bistro, bakery, pub, etc. became a metonym, was the
idea of the “Third Place”: a term that emerged to describe new social
environments that were distinct from both home (the first place) and work (the
second place) and which revolved around leisure, consumption and the desire for
the social with a lesser emphasis on the community Banerjee Tridib [1],
Oldenburg Ray [2]. The full vocabulary that thoughtful public realms,
intragenerational and inclusive can offer, as prime public places, is a vivid
example of Oldenburg’s third place theory (1999) which he centers round a place
to which person(s) are drawn into some kind of sanctuary, serenity, relaxation
and refuge feeling and atmosphere. This is a place where the community feeling
is being developed and nurtured (Figure 1).
Introduction
The main argument is that third places,
places where people can gather, relax after work, put aside their differences,
concerns of work and home, and just hang out simply for the pleasures of good
company and lively conversation, are the heart of (any) community’s social
vitality and are the grassroots of democracy Oldenburg R [3] (Figure 2). Third
places are gathering places and their importance is in nourishing sociability.
For these places to work, they need to fully enable a culture of social
inclusion, multiculturalism, ethnic diversity and a balance social-mix, instead
of becoming very segregated, mono cultural realms. One thing is certain: these
places such as coffee houses, community centers, groceries, markets, bazaars,
parks, discussion rooms, etc. are of extreme importance for a vibrant life of
any neighborhood, town or city. Now on the opposite site of the pendulum, but
still making sense of cities complex hybridities and constant transformations,
Edward Soja’s “third space” presents itself as an extremely useful term
(curiously resembling in form, though definitely not meaning, the Oldenburg
Third Place). In essence, third spaces are those which overlay real spaces (the
first space) and imagined spaces (the second space), both we mentioned above,
to produce in something that is open-ended, undefinable, fluid, and endlessly
complex (as are, Soja argues, so many contemporary urban spaces in cities).
Soja Edward W [4]. Importantly, third spaces are not only physically
constructed but socially and virtually constructed (Something that Oldenburg
has not envisioned at all) as well: a factor which, above all, infers that they
may be differentially constructed. By the way, Soja’s theory of the third space
builds on Henri Lefebvre’s concept of the spatial triad Lefebvre H [5].
Lefebvre’s production of space ideas remains contentious but highly relevant
for the investigation of city transformation in general and how the planning of
urban space can contribute to social injustice in particular University of
Minnesota Press. and Harvey D [6]. What Oldenburg describes as “the problem of
place” one of the foci and key driving elements his social urban geography
work, and is where Soja’s concept of third space differs most dramatically; as
in third spaces, the key link between participants is not normally their
location but shared links that draw people together.
Communities include things held in
common, like government and social structure as well as a common sense of place
or location. Main function of the community (local community-gemeinschaft) is
to mediate between the individual and society (geselschaft), and that people
could relate to their societies through both geographic and non-geographic
substructures of communities Hillery G [7]. The third place is an outcry for
the return to the fundamental values of a community; some which have been
forgotten and erased in today’s age of fast changes, superficial values and
eradicated places. The popularity of a place where new social networks are
built and old maintained can never be or made obsolete. Third places have
existed for hundreds of years. They wereplaces that had their appeal and that
were symbols and active mediators in community communication. As Oldenburg
calls them-social condensersplaces, agoras if you will, where all citizens of the
community or a neighborhood meet to develop the place where citizens of a
community or neighborhood meet to develop friendships, discuss issues, and
interact (socially changes, positive and negative ones alike. A
well-functioning public realm with a third place richness can build social
capital by enforcing and melding social relations Putnam R, Lewis F [8]. This
happens through in-continuo social contact among people in multiple overlapping
role relationships Lennard Crowhurst S, Lennard, H [9].
These third places are crucial to a
community for a number of reasons. They are firstly distinctive informal
gathering places, secondly, they make the citizen feel at home, thirdly they
nourish relationships and a diversity of human contact, fourthly they help create
a sense of place and community and finally they invoke a sense of civic pride
Oldenburg R [10]. The key ingredient lies in the fact that they are socially
binding, encouraging sociability at the same time and fighting against
isolation. They simply make life more joyous, colorful, and they enrich city’s
economic activity, public life and democracy. The life of third places in
coffee shops, cafés, hair salons, restaurants, bakeries, semi-informal meeting
places, bazaars, other markets, gardens etc. are in alignment with the argument
that these types of places are the facilitators of vibrant and good public life
and that in most cases they are in synergy with open public spaces, like
squares, bazaars and other markets. [3] points at the essential ingredients for
a well-functioning third place: 1. They must be free or relatively inexpensive
to enter and to purchase food and drinks. They must be highly accessible;
ideally one should be able to get there by foot from one’s home; A number of
people can be expected to be there on a daily basis; All people should feel
welcome, regardless of their race, gender or religion and it should be easy to
get into a conversation. A person who goes there should be able to find both
old and new friends each time they visit. Third places are retreats into social
spaces from a selfish need with those of like mind. Its where we foster some of
our selfesteem, and a great deal of our social capital, that helps us survive
and bridge home and work Putnam RD [11].
Freud held that emotional wellbeing
depends upon having someone to love and a work to do. Oldenburg argues that we
also need a dependable place of refuge where, for a few minutes a day, we can
escape the demands of family and work environment Oldenburg R [10]. Third places
in action, where intergenerational spirit exists, can provide possible and
viable foundation for: 1) foster a sense of connection between people (of
different age, gender, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, political
or religious beliefs) 2) create temporary and permanent venues where a vibrant
exchange of ideas can take place 3) encourage those ideas to lead to real
efforts that bring progress to the community 4) offer an enjoyable and
long-lasting social and aesthetic environment both for you, elderly and in the
middle-for all geographies of age.
Built environment supports the built-up
of social capital not just amongst adults, elderly but also between children.
Especially for children the concept of the traditional European square offers
an important learning environment. Primarily, children learn by repeated
observation, imitation and practice in relating to a range of adults in
multiple contexts Lennard H [12]. The disturbing lack of good public spaces in
our cities, town and neighborhoods where children are able to gather and play,
can have a tremendous impact on urban culture. Lack of these places reinforces
the already omnipresent alienation and loss of real sense of place for
children, which has to do a lot with the overuse of video, TV and other
electronic media (rise of obesity levels due to lack of walking, exercise,
etc.). Another problem is lack of walking and the overuse of automobile for
transportation of children even on very short distances.
Because children cannot always reach
places on their own, they rely upon their parents to transport them everywhere
(thus the “soccer mom” phenomenon in American suburbia). The problem is also
that children often play in the street and across several open front lawns. It
is impossible, however, to define this area as urban space (like a public
square) bounded by surrounding houses and trees, when distances between
opposite houses are enormous Gehl J [13]. The common mistake is made when parks
are being associated with public squares. Parks are designed with specific
areas set aside for recreational activities or quiet contemplation. A typical
park is an area dominated by grass, trees, water and pathways. Public squares
are designed with paved surfaces to accommodate a variety of uses that parks cannot
offer, including the relation to the built environment, orientation, legibility
and imageability. However, both are needed in order to create livable places
and one does not exclude the other. Public places (squares) have also a value
to children for play. This becomes very obvious when kids learn to use their
imaginations and expand their sense of curiosity in an environment that offers
much more than just landscape. It is also a place where children learn how to
properly socialize with their equals, to organize themselves, and to resolve
disputes. The same could be said of society. Environmental psychology has
looked into those aspects where there are clear indications that the
opportunity to explore rich, varied public realm environments appears related
to cognitive, social, and motor development in young children. Physical spaces
designed for children must meet the need for social interaction as well as
preserving the possibility of privacy. Persons on European squares act to
acknowledge and confirm each other’spresence. And, if they are fortunate,
children get a sense of the pleasure and some experience in being with, meeting
and talking to each other Crowhurst Lennard S, Lennard H [14]. Lack of
attention to the different ways children (could) use their cities (public realm
especially) can have dire consequences for the future of urban design in
creation of livable cities. Cities urban public spaces need to be designed in
such a way to support sociability and constructive exchange, not destructive
behavior Lennard H, Lennard Crowhurst S [12].
Figure 3 As we mentioned above, the
concept of third place, developed by Ray Oldenburg, is distinct from first and
second places. A first place is the private space of home. Second places are
where people spend significant time, often formally. These include schools,
universities and workplaces. Common examples of third places in cities include
community gardens, libraries, public swimming pools, cafes, men’s sheds,
farmers’ markets and dog parks. There is growing understanding of the negative
outcomes and costs associated with loneliness, especially with elderly
generation. These include fractured communities, declining trust, stress,
depression and disease. Clearly this is neither desirable nor sustainable. More
than a century ago the sociologist George Simmel G, Wolff KH [15] observed how
mobility disrupts social connection and creates isolation. The urban migrant,
or a lonely senior citizen leaves behind her/his own social ties and often
struggles to connect to the new community or lack of such. These challenges
feel both the migrant, the elderly and their new neighbors around her/him.
Third places can help by creating or enhancing a sense of community on a
smaller, more human scale a relief from the overwhelming sensory experience of
a large and unfamiliar city.
The village-like feeling of third places
can reduce people’s anxieties and make them more comfortable with trying a new
social experience, therefore minimizing the urban loneliness. Loneliness has
been associated with objective social isolation, depression, introversion, or
poor social skills. However, studies have shown these characterizations are
incorrect, and that ‘loneliness is a unique condition in which an individual
perceives himself or herself to be socially isolated even when among other
people’ while human longitudinal studies indicate that the ‘harmful effects of
loneliness are not attributable to some peculiarity of individuals who are
lonely, instead they are due to the effects of loneliness on ordinary people’
Miller G [16], Murthy V [17] and-the-loneliness epidemic and Masi CM, Chen HY,
Hawkley LC, Cacioppo JT [18]. and Cacioppo JT, Cacioppo S, Capitanio JP, Cole
SW [19].
Implication for Planning
and Urban Design Policy for Combatting (Urban) Loneliness through Urban form
and Human Behavior approaches
Implications for policy in urban planning
and design for combating urban loneliness are extensive if all tenants of the
place theory, i.e. Oldenburg’s example of third place, can and could be
included. As we mentioned before, community and society are on the classic
linking elements. Community development programs recommend supporting elderly
and intragenerational setting and links, small businesses geared toward the
young and middle aged children’s suitable environment and third places for their
peoplebased social benefits, might be the key. Some researchers suggest that
pace-street based businesses that are considered “third places” by the users of
those same “Main or High Streets” influence their immediate public space by
paying more attention to and providing place-based urban design characteristics
that help make good people places Mehta V, Bosson JK [20].
These and other findings have implications for urban design, community
planning, city management and economic development policies. What we see from
our research as emerging issues for policy and design implications and
implementations, those with spatial and social value (physical and social
sustainability efforts) are issues of natural accessibility and acceptable
distances for elderly, proximity to destination of value and utility and mixed
use for socialization and publicness and familiarity to spaces and place
attachment in terms of sense of place and place recognition. An addendum to
this, in the age of crime, fear and pandemics, an additional issue of gentle
density and green spaces is a must.
Dykstra [21] uses the distinction between emotional and social loneliness in an
attempt to unpack the complex nature of loneliness and its association with
other psychological responses to company, community and society. “Emotional
loneliness” encompasses feelings of desolation and insecurity that result from
missing or losing an intimate attachment and so having no-one to turn to. In
seeming contrast, “Social loneliness” is characterized by the perceived lack of
a circle of friends and acquaintances who can provide a sense of belonging,
companionship and community. When thinking about the role that urban planning
and urban design or placemaking (for policy and implementation) has in
addressing loneliness the obvious conclusion would be that the focus should be
on social loneliness Dykstra PA [21]. Gotesky’s [22] claims that there are 4
kinds of loneliness, that loneliness is a contemporary phenomenon, and that
loneliness can be transcended. Gotesky distinguishes between physical
aloneness, the spatial and/or temporal separation from others; loneliness, the
feeling of being rejected by one’s fellows or excluded from their activities
and interests when one desires to be included and accepted; the state of
feeling isolated, which derives from the rational recognition of conditions of
existence which one does not know how to change; and solitude, a state of
living or working alone which is free from the pain of loneliness or isolation
Gotesky R [22]. Loneliness has always characterized the consciousness of man:
It is a permanent condition that may be alleviated but not transcended, because
each human ego is unavoidably confined to its own realm of monadic, opaque, and
solipsistic consciousness. Mijuskovic B [23]. It is evident that the experience
of loneliness is a very rich plethora and mix of a number of variances of
emotional experiences Nisenbaum S [24].
Urban planning & design have enormous
potential to address issues like human loneliness and the health and wellbeing
of citizens, in this case the ageing society. To realize this promise, it must
be valued differently and formulated around contemporary social scientific
understanding of human ‘needs’, not aesthetic architectural narratives. Eric
Miller [25] Cities simply need to accept and adapt to multigenerational urban
settings, ageing in place strategies, smart ageing and the combination of
traditional and contemporary lifestyles and accessibility where the “senior
city” or “geographies of age” generation of people cannot and must not be cut
off from the rest of society, with age becoming a new form of segregation, one
which ultimately provides the ground for emerging and growing urban loneliness.
On the contrary cities and planners and
urban designers need to accept that they - the ageing society and the new
reality reflects a desire for an active, experience-filled lifestyle. In this
fashion, three interrelated aspects of ageing must be considered in creating
policy responses for ageing societies: i) individual ageing; ii) population
ageing; iii) the new equilibrium of societies that have undergone the different
stages of an ageing trend Ageing Societies: A Comparative Introduction,
McGraw-Hill. Finally, policy makers need to nurture, manage, retain and support
the third places of Oldenburgian type that exist in neighborhoods; if they
don’t, they need to be regenerated or created. All should realize the social
value of being recognized as a third place and follow business models that help
them become third places Oldenburg R [26]. Policy makers need to be sensitive
to both the existing and the new third places in neighborhoods and value them
not only for their social attributes but also for their contribution to the
design quality of the public spaces in which they exist Mehta V, Bosson JK
[10]. There is ultimately a need to develop an adaptable, resilient and
inclusive place strategy to address urban loneliness, sort of a proactive
placemaking approach that will have nexus in the need for prosocial places;
ones combating lonely cities-empty spaces and isolated places.
Finally, there is a need to take a few
steps back and position the whole issue of public spaces and loneliness in a
larger scheme, an almost metaphysical conceptual contour. There are multiple
and even limitless ways of understanding, approaching and analyzing the subject
of (urban) loneliness in contemporary culture and society, i.e. in our cities.
Loneliness is largely a social phenomenon and a social form Johansson, T and
Andreasson T [27]. (Urban) Loneliness, product of partly (urban or ‘agorian’)
social (and even physical) isolation and retreat and partly our own subjective
(metaphysical, subconscious, conscious and synchronicity) interpretation of our
lives, can become a public health problem in our cities. Why? Simply because it
degrades the lives of the public, bring down the quality and joy of being,
makes our lives shorter and unhealthier; our bodies and motoric prone to
sickness and disease, our minds vulnerable to anxiety, stress, isolation,
alienation, depression and other mental illness and daytime/ nighttime
problems. But as with most ailments that manifest in our individual bodies,
loneliness is also a failure of our environments, and the powers who have
created or neglected them Ankita Rao [28]. The (urban) loneliness that city
dwellers are experiencing today, are obviously not imbedded and rooted in any
one (single) phenomenon or reason, though we easily slip into believes of
blaming the “modern” causes of this: breakdown of the traditional nucleus
family unit, disappearance of porches in front of our houses, urban sprawl,
bowling alone, dominance of the car, the mindless network society and its
“evil” city of bits: scroll-click-scroll of our phones and tablets, or the
endless stress always-connected-onjobs- online feeling that follow us home
through emails, SMSs texts, Whatsups, Instagram’s, Facebooks, Twitters and
other messages. What really is needed is a deeper understanding of the triad of
complexity: space, place and time. If we do not understand that we will never
understand (urban) loneliness and thereby never be able to intervene in proper
way in urban planning & design. We have a pretty good understanding what
good public realms are and what good urban design is and the position of
loneliness within; but without a thorough understanding of “time” as the main
pinnacle of the cubus or triangle of concepts and categories, we will never
arrive anywhere.
Marc Wittmann (2016) gives us a
fascinating inquiry into how our subjective experience of time’s passage shapes
everything from our emotional memory to our sense of self. This is also
extremely important for our cities and public realms and us within them.
“Consciousness is tied to corporeality and temporality; I experience myself as
existing with a body over time...If one has no time, one has also lost oneself.
Distracted by the obligations of everyday activities, we are no longer aware of
ourselves… Everything is done all at once, faster and faster, yet no personal
balance or meaning can be found. This implies the loss of contact with one’s
own self. We also no longer feel “at home” with ourselves and find it difficult
to persist in any given activity because we are available at every moment”,
Marc Wittmann [29].
“If we had deliberately aimed to make
cities that create loneliness, we could hardly have been more successful,” said
Suzanne Lennard, an architect and the director of the International Making
Cities Livable movement and author of some of the leading works on public spaces.
Lennard said “we have lost some of our cities’ most essential components, like
the plazas and piazzas that once formed the center, allowing for people to
naturally bump into each other, or interact while shopping, eating, and
walking. Which is why urban planners and designers have started to look at the
pathways, gardens, and building façades that have become staples of the urban
milieu. In other words, they are examining many of the features we pass by
every day without so much as knowing how such things influence our psyche”.
Lennard S [30]. At the end of the day, understanding the underlying problems
that create and contribute to urban loneliness, understanding the complexity of
space, place and time, and accepting the reality of everyday urbanism, i.e.
contemporary urbanism in general will be sine qua non for moving beyond merely
theorizing and analyzing the problems; but instead through research and
practice outputs shows that an alternative, for a less lonely 8urban) future is
indeed possible. Without claiming to solve (urban) loneliness, urban planning
and urban design can be an important tool in response to it (Figure 4).
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