The Great Good Place
Q&A with Jennifer Finlay, Institute of Behavioral Science fellow, University of Colorado Boulder
When bars close, more than jobs are lost.
For many people in smaller towns and cities, the local pub is a refuge from isolation and loneliness, a gathering place to converse, share stories, and catch up on the community news. Bar closures also affect local economies, diminishing tax revenue drawn on alcohol, food, and property. Businesses like food and beverage distributors, breweries, and maintenance services are adversely affected. Nearby commercial venues endure declining foot traffic.
In 1989, urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg wrote The Last Great Place to decry the growing lack of public places for people from different backgrounds to gather and interact on equal footing. In the book, Oldenburg coined the phrase “third place” to describe locations like bars, pubs, cafes, and restaurants that people regularly frequent to pleasurably socialize with other people. Such third places contrasted with our homes and work, the first and second places, respectively.
Oldenburg was perturbed by a decline in third places as people moved from cities to the suburbs. The loss of these third places contributed to isolation, loneliness, boredom, and alienation. In the book, he repeatedly refers to bars as historic centers of civic life, from the taverns of the American Revolution to the swanky cocktail bars of the postwar environment, calling them a “genuine social solvent…a home away from home.”
Since the book’s publication, other sociologists have tackled the closures of third places in their own research. Jennifer Finlay, a fellow at the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, has written extensively on the impact of the closure of bars and other third places on public health and well-being. She discussed those issues with Leader’s Edge.
The Q&A below has been edited for clarity and concision.
Q
Ray Oldenburg coined the phrase “third place” to describe places like the local pub where people gather and converse. How does the loss of such places affect the greater community?
A
The literature increasingly finds that access to third places is essential to individual and collective health, given opportunities to reduce stress, loneliness, and alienation. These are places for direct social contact and support. Just being together in a physical place often contributes to increased feelings of pride, acceptance, and trust. Even if the people you encounter are not deep friends, it is important to be engaged with others, building bonding and bridging ties.
Q
Are these ties two different things?
A
Much so. Bonding ties, I tell students, are the people who might look and think like you, who often share similar social demographics. Bridging ties are the people who don’t look and think like you—maybe an older generation, folks with different political or religious affiliations or identities. While deep bonding ties with family and friends are important to the quality of one’s life, studies indicate that what we call “weak” social ties—acquaintances you give a friendly wave to—are powerfully linked to increased levels of health, happiness, and longevity. The more acquaintances one has, the greater the possibility of these positive outcomes. These everyday encounters meaningfully fill our lives, ever more important in this time of greater polarization and divisiveness.
Q
It’s hard for me to accept that a place that serves alcohol, a beverage recently associated with health issues like heart disease, cancer, and dementia, can also be good for one’s health.
A
Drinking alcohol is not a health benefit. But the communal aspects of bars do encourage healthy behaviors. One study I’m working on suggests that access to bars in rural areas is linked to better brain health for older Americans, although we are running more analyses. For some older folks, the bar might be the only place where they get out the door and walk to, activity that contributes to their physical and mental well-being. We know that excessive alcohol is a risk factor for dementia, but so are social isolation, depression, and physical inactivity.
Q
Are there benefits of bars and other third places beyond one’s physical and mental health?
A
Several studies show that bars boost networking and information sharing for people of all ages. Local economies benefit. One study, for instance, found that when a bar opens in an area, entrepreneurship rises.
Q
The proverbial “back of the cocktail napkin” business idea! Not to change the subject, but I’m curious if there’s such a thing as online third places?
A
There is, and they bring both promise and peril. During COVID, online third places delivered vital benefits, broadening social engagements that were less possible physically. But there is a huge risk involved in online sites as replacements for an actual person. For one thing, online expression is often politically and socially extreme. People use online expression in ways they won’t in person. Civility is often lost. We also know that algorithms push us into online echo chambers, where there is less opportunity for the types of healthy dialogues that create bridging ties.
Q
What makes you saddest about the loss of third places?
A
People looking for informal, carefree, and positive social encounters, like chatting with someone they bump into at the checkout counter, are less apt to engage because of fears of hostility and violence. It wasn’t always that way. Now, we rush through the grocery store, averting our eyes. For the elderly especially, this is terrible. In Finland and other Nordic countries, supermarkets have introduced slow checkout lanes for people who enjoy chatting. In the U.K., a pilot program combatting loneliness requires postal workers delivering the mail to knock on the door of isolated older adults and check in. With many bars closing, such ideas need to be given greater consideration.
