Third spaces have all but disappeared from society. It’s part of the reason people have trouble making friends outside of work or school, because there’s nowhere to go hang out that doesn’t require spending money of some kind. Places like the mall and the park are less appealing for anyone out of high school, and meeting at bars and coffee shops gets expensive. However, if there was a space at the end of your street with an office, a game room, an accessible kitchen with a community fridge and bathrooms just like your house where you could go to work, watch TV with other people in your neighborhood or use the pool, it would be so much easier to make friends and build community without spending an arm and a leg.
There tend to be open plots of land or houses for or rent on every street in a suburban neighborhood. If you think about it, those are prime locations for community centers for the people living on that street. It would be less intimidating to make friends with your neighbor if you have already met them while they were cooking in the community kitchen or using the community pool. Or maybe they needed to run into the bathroom and grab a quick snack on their morning jog. With that community space there, people can come and exist outside of their home but still be in a home-like environment.
With the addition of these centers, almost every community becomes a walkable city. More people would have somewhere they know they can go when they need to leave the house, and it becomes 10x easier to ask your neighbor for help with moving, carpool to work and school, and building lasting relationships.
