Where Is Your Third Place?

There is one thing cities provide in much greater abundance than suburbs: the essential “third places” in our lives that provide respite and relaxation for us outside our homes or workplaces.

Third places are defined as one of three places that meet fundamental human needs: home, a first place; work, a second place; and a third place, where we go to find community, relaxation, and simply “be” when we aren’t at home or working.

For all the people who work from home offices, the line between the first and second places, home and work space, may have blurred, but it makes the third place even more important. We all need a common place to hang out, see friends, find conversation, or simply watch the world go by. We seek a place that is separate from our homes or workplaces and all their attendant comforts and irritations.

Third places are very individual. In a family of four, there could be four different third places: church, coffeehouse, club or park. They are where you go to get away from your immediate responsibilities and expectations. You don’t have to do housework or laundry; you don’t have to finish that project or spar with your partner. You are (temporarily) free to indulge your own thoughts, talk or not talk, do or not do anything.

In the city of St. Louis there are many good third-places: local coffeehouses like The Hartford, Shaw Coffee or even the London Tea Room. There are neighborhood bars and cafes where they get to know you and you can stay as long as you like. There are libraries, drop-in centers and parks. There are churches and clubs, both social and athletic. There are museums and entertainment districts like The Loop on Delmar or Washington Avenue downtown. And there are intentional places like Left Bank Books with book groups, author readings and community events. These third places are close at hand, across the street or down the block, most of them within walking distance.

The suburbs of St. Louis are trickier, especially in second-ring suburbs. Newer, more affluent suburbs like Chesterfield and Wildwood have been built with more modern sensibilities about community gathering spots and the intentional communities created by mixed-use construction. You may be more likely to hang out at commercially sponsored third places like Starbucks or the mall, but they exist and are well used.

The second-ring suburbs are in a tougher spot. They belong to an earlier time, before we realized how much we would miss the communal third places that are so abundant in the city. Like the outer-ring suburbs, they may have some commercially-sponsored places like Starbucks, McDonalds or Dennys, but there may be only one or two in a municipality and they are rarely within walking distance. There is a real dearth of small, local businesses like independent coffeehouses, casual cafes or bookstores. Which pretty much leaves the bar, gym or possibly church and almost all of them require driving in your car.

There is a misplaced attempt to fulfill this need for third places in the construction of suburban great rooms, finished basements and fully-equipped media rooms, but all of these fall short. A third place requires distance from home and family. It also requires diversity and randomness in the people you might observe or start a conversation with.
When I lived in Seattle, I could easily walk a few blocks to any of six coffeehouses, each with its own ambience and crowd of regulars. There were bookstores with cafes where you could hang out from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. When I lived in the South Grand area, I had my choice of places to hang out.

In Maryland Heights, I’m stumped. I occasionally get in the car and drive to Starbucks at Westport or I go farther afield to Creve Couer or Chesterfield. More and more, I drive farther to Main Street in St. Charles or into the city to find a third place, but none of them are my third place.

City planners take note: vibrant cities or suburbs don’t exist without a multitude of viable third places. And if you want to attract the young, the creative, the socially engaged, that advice is doubly important.

What I’d like to know, especially if you’re a suburbanite, is where is your third place? Where do you regularly go to hang out, read a book, see friends, or just escape home and work responsibilities? What makes a place your third space? I look forward to what you have to say.

-Deborah Moulton

Riverport Area Should Be Walkable (Updated)

For the first time in my 19 years in St. Louis, I went to the suburban Riverport area last weekend (map) .  I went to the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (formerly known as the Riverport Amphitheater) for Farm Aid.

But this post is about the amphitheater (bottom above) as it is about the entire area along the loop road known as Riverport Drive.  This compact area contains offices, hotels and restaurants – all within easy walking distance of each other.  Sure, nobody is going to walk to Riverport but people should be able to walk within Riverport.

The #34 bus stops at Riverport Drive.  Then what?  Walk in the street to get to your destination?  Are sidewalks and a pedestrian network just too much to ask?

The area includes several hotels.  I know I’ve had long days before driving in a car for hours and after checking into a hotel the last thing I want to do is have to get back in the car to drive to dinner.  Walking should be an option in addition to driving.  As designed, the only option is driving.

I’m not asking for a recreation of a downtown, just tie it all together with sidewalks.

Update 10/9/09 @ 10am:

I looked up the directions to get to Riverport from my place downtown.  It is very easy but it is that last bit that makes it unpleasant.

I love the caution about missing sidewalks.

– Steve Patterson

Finally Back Online (updated)

Originally posted 10/6/09 @ 6:14pm:

My 3rd-party server space has been experiencing issues since last Saturday.  It is back up now obviously.  The problems were completely beyond my control.  Hopefully the host company has the issues resolved.   To stay connected I suggest following the blog on Twitter at twitter.com/urbanreviewstl.  Don’t want to sign up for Twitter?  Just subscribe to the RSS Feed to get updates.    Your patience has been appreciated.

Update 10/8/09 -@ 5:20pm:

Server performance has clearly been spotty.  While I’m hopeful the issues at the host have been resolved I’m not holding my breath.

– Steve Patterson

A Tale of Two Existences

Between recent comments here on the blog and the URBANEXUS gathering downtown recently, it has been striking how vehemently people feel about the urban vs. suburban existence. The vitriol is mostly one-sided, the urbanists against the suburbanites. To most suburbanites, there is little passion for that fight because the city is basically irrelevant to them. Suburbanites tend to fall into three main groups: they have lived in the city at one point and subsequently chosen a suburban path; they enjoy visiting city amenities but don’t want to live there; or it never appealed to them. So what lies behind this divide?

If urbanists disdain the suburbs and speak arrogantly toward those who live there, where is the fuel? I would suggest it is, at heart, anger. The suburbs represent everything they hate: sameness, conformity, uniformity, and detachment or entrenchment from the world at large. But aren’t these all illusions? Aren’t they just as conformist to an urban identity and shared disdain for the suburbs? Aren’t both cities and suburbs created landscapes representative of their times? Aren’t as many people isolated and detached from the world in their urban condos and apartments as the folks who inhabit split-levels, ranch houses and huge suburban great rooms? Is one really better than another? Or are they neither better or worse, just different?

I am the most unlikely defender of the suburbs. I have hated them most of my adult life. I grew up in a small town, 100 miles from any large city, and I didn’t really experience city life until after college when I started my career in Peoria, then Chicago. I lived on the Chicago’s north side, in Lincoln Park before it became ultra chic. Then I moved to Seattle in the Queen Anne neighborhood. I spent my vacations in cities visiting friends in New York, LA, San Francisco and Boston. Nothing else appealed to me and I was horrified by friends and relatives as they abandoned the cities for the suburbs. Not me, not ever, I said.

So here I am, in Maryland Heights, and (gasp) I enjoy it. It’s a second-ring suburb so it’s grown-up, it’s mature, it has huge trees and sidewalks. Its houses were built in the peak era of the rise of middle class. Large enough to be comfortable, but small enough to be considered now as modest in comparison to much larger, new suburban homes and mega mansions. The lawns aren’t huge, the neighborhood is extremely walkable for exercise and recreation, and the energy footprint is modest like the houses.

I have a garden and enjoy yard work after years of container gardening on porches and balconies. I have a giant sweet-gum tree in my front yard and love raking leaves. I know my neighbors. My sister and her family live less than a mile away. My mother lives with me. It is easy to get around and run errands, pick up library books, and every night, for the first time in my life, I park my car in an enclosed garage. I no longer have to get up early to scrape the ice from my windows, shovel myself out of street parking, or get soaked in the pouring rain before I’ve ever left home.

Located smack in the middle of I-270, I-70 and Page Avenue, I can get to the airport in under 15 minutes (important when I commuted weekly to Seattle for my job) and there’s almost no place in the metropolitan area that I can’t get to in about 20 minutes or less. I have fresh, locally grown food available at Thies Farm and the many charms of Creve Coeur Park are less than a mile from my house.

My city is small enough that I can easily attend meetings and interact with city government. I know the people who run my city and I can work both with them and in opposition to them to build a better city with a sustainable future. I have easily met others and formed a residents’ group that will continue to educate and inform the political process.

Maryland Heights is also auto-centric, lacks a town center and informal gathering places, and, like every other place on earth, is sometimes boring. So I think it comes down to this: time of life and love. Our decisions about where to live are not abstract concepts. They are practical and they come with a constellation of considerations, many beyond our control, and many of them related to love.

We fall in love with someone who already owns a house in the suburbs or we move to have a vastly shorter commute to our suburban employer. We move to the suburbs of St. Louis because our toddler will soon be in school and we believe in the value of public-school education, but not in the St. Louis city schools. Our parents grow old and need help and comfort in their old age. They move in with us, into a single-story ranch house with an attached garage, and easy access to medical facilities and grocery stores. We can simply be ready for a change of pace: ready to garden in our own yard, to participate in civic activities, and take care of our extended families while we still have them.

Time is precious. I wouldn’t trade my 25 years as a fervent urbanist for anything. It was the absolute right thing for me. I have come to love my life in the suburbs in service to those I hold most dear. There will be other chapters in my life and I will, doubtless, live other places, including the heart of a great city.

I wish I had been more thoughtful, and less shrill, about my choices when I was younger. I wish I could have been more confident in my own choices without thinking everyone had to feel the same way. I wish I had known more about the value of family ties and the difference between sacrifice and a loving sacrifice. I wish I had been kinder to my friends who married and left for the suburbs.

One of the great gifts of age is a truer appreciation of diversity and how we all make choices for love. My neighborhood is as integrated as my neighborhood in the city, maybe more so, because of all the nationalities that live near me. But it isn’t race that makes us diverse, it’s all the stories of how they came to be here, the choices they made for love, and why this is only one chapter of a long and varied life.

-Deborah Moulton

Readers Favor Breaking Up the St. Louis Political Machine, But How?

In last week’s readers overwhelmingly favored breaking up the St. Louis political machine (89%).  Sixty people indicated we need to break up the political machine.   In one answer option I suggested switching our municipal elections to non-partisan – only 25 selected this answer.  The other 35 that agreed we should break up the machine didn’t think non-partisan elections would accomplish that goal.   In hindsight I should have provided a choice for someone that favors both breaking up the machine and non-partisan elections even though they they don’t think the latter will accomplish the former.

Here is a random list of possible reform measures:

• non-partisan elections
• reduction in the number of wards
• have some or all aldermen elected “at large” rather than from a specific ward
• reduction in the number of ‘county’ offices elected by voters
• term limits
• switch to City Manager-Council form of government
• Some variation on joining or consolidating with St. Louis County

I’m sure you can think of other options, if so list them in the comments below.  We probably need some combination of the above.

Changes to the existing charter will, no doubt, be characterized by the establishment as 1) a measure to reduce the influence on the Democratic party within the state and 2) will reduce the influence of African-Americans in the city & state.  On the first one, jurisdictions can have non-partisan elections for dog catcher and still be partisan when it comes to higher offices.  I think having St. Louis’ offices be non-partisan would help how we are viewed by the rest of the state.  On the second issue, fewer elected offices would mean fewer blacks in office.  It would also mean fewer whites.  We’ve elected blacks to nearly every city-wide office in the city. Given the demographic composition of the city I don’t see that changing.  Our current political structure doesn’t work — it should not be kept just to keep people in office.

As we’ve seen over the years the opposing political factions within the black community are fierce.  Many are decades old family feuds.

We’ve got to move our political power structure to actual serve the city & region, not just the politicians in office.  I know, crazy idea — government that actually works for the people.  Until we have a fundamental shift in leadership the region’s core will continue to not live up to its great potential.

– Steve Patterson