Obituary for the American Neighborhood
The American neighborhood died after World War II, writes author and urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg. And with it went our “Third Places.”
As writer, professor, and culture theorist Barry Vacker once observed, chain coffeeshops have become the new centers of real neighborhood community, friendship, and discourse. In his “Obituary for the American Neighborhood,” urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg laments the demise of what he calls the “Third Places,” public spaces that are the setting of informal public life and give rise to real community – coffeeshops, pubs, diners, beer gardens and parks. In Dallas, we know their disappearance well. The now-deceased neighborhood coffeeshop in the Lower Greenville area of Dallas was very much a place “where everybody knows your name,” and the grass-roots campaign launched to save it was evidence that more than ever we are trying to hold on to our remaining “Third Places.”
– Carl Parmenter
The American neighborhood died after World War II. It was killed by urban planners who imposed Euclidian or single-use zoning from coast to coast. Residential areas were stripped of the services and supplies that earlier generations found within easy walking distance. The familiar and frequently visited “place on the corner” became just another private residence. New houses became larger (twice the size of new European houses) for families that were smaller than before. Never before, observed one urban scholar, had a nation of people focused on anything as small as a house. The home became our substitute for community. Neighbors became “nigh dwellers” separated by privacy fences and encouraged to “keep to themselves.” What the planners gave us, as Raymond Curran put it, was “personal isolation and independence from a communal context.”
Ignored or forgotten was Mary Parker Follett’s wisdom regarding the importance of vital neighborhoods, and what neighborhoods offered may simply be called “the mix.” There was regular interaction between people of varied occupations and varied political views. There was daily interaction with children and the elderly. It was a locality that spawned characters and a culture all its own. Though some sneered at small local neighborhoods, Mary Follett pointed out that it was the cosmopolites who were all alike and whose world was small.
Essential to the vitality of pre-World War II neighborhoods were an abundance of public and semi-public gathering places. These, in addition to the sidewalks and street corners, provided the places where the mixing took place. There were soda fountains and cafes, taverns and bakeries, the post office and the local park, the grocery stores and other small business establishments that encouraged loitering. Most people enjoyed three “anchors” in life: the first being the home, the second the workplace, and the third their favorite hangout or “third place” in which they took time out to enjoy themselves in the company of good friends. Thus constituted, the neighborhood also provided a highly supportive context for the American family which now is too much alone and too dependent on its own resources.
Today’s sterile subdivisions and vacant streets breed levels of stress unknown in earlier days. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited our nation, he was impressed with what Americans achieved informally, unofficially, “on our own” and he was given to write: “The right of free assembly is the most natural privilege of man.” Why has urban planning in the United States made it so difficult? Do you have a “third place”?
Used to, the Tipperary Inn was exactly that sort of spot. People dropped in, to have a beer. My friend and I started going there, when our mutual friend was dying in the fall of 2001. If someone drove past and saw your car, they stopped. We brought our kids, then our kids went off to college, and then they started coming again.
Its a Grind is trying hard to be that sort of community, at Baylor Green line stop.
A couple of years ago, Club Dada was like that on Thursdays. Now, I don’t really have a specific place. Most of my friends live inside 635/75, but North of Mockingbird, although most of us work closer to downtown. We now pick several spots to have a beer: Trinity Hall, Uptown Pub, and my favorite Meridian Room.
It’s nice to have a neighborhood spot.
8 October 2009 at 1:45 pm