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This video is full of great points, and filled with a lot of nuance that usually isn't brought up in the "developer vs community" discourse. Thanks for putting your thoughts out there!

"That a library has to serve as a community center is actually a failing of neoliberal austerity." As a library worker, THANK YOU. I am sick to my fucking throat of fellow left leaning and communist people saying, "what if the library could be a communal daycare? And a homeless shelter? And a food bank? And so on?" I love helping people, but WE CAN'T. We cannot be everything. We are underfunded as it is. Country-wide, at least in the US, libraries are stretched past their limits trying to function as a hundred institutions that would and should be separate buildings under a communist system or even under a functioning welfare system. We are the last pillar of a good idea - we're the last mountain during a flood, everyone has here, and there is no room. Staff are not trained as daycare or social workers or nurse practitioners or the dozen other things I do day to day that I'm not qualified for and don't have time for. It's a mess! And every time I see another dumbass calling us "the last third space" i want to kick them.

As someone who knows nothing about planning (love ur videos tho!) I wonder if I’m crazy to think this theory kind of reads like very very diet libertarian municipalism / council communism ? Although I wonder why this theorist sees a separate technical panel for those with non-experiential knowledge, rather than their participation in working groups as equals?

I still don’t even know what a third place is or the right to the city lol

Absolutely LOVE how you push back on the criticism of "utopian thinking". Every decision made is seeking a utopia (or in the case of Neo-liberal capitalists, dystopia). Don't let right-wingers or centrists tell you you're being idealistic.

I so love your material:)

I love this! Have you ever considered going over historical socialist planning and explaining their pros and cons? (If you've already done this, I apologise for my ignorance)

If they are willing to go then move all the lefties go

BRO IS ONTO SOMTHING

do you have any recommendations on more watching (or reading) on the tenure of the krumholz city design? like details of the politics and actual projects? thanks 4 the vids, been reccing your third space vid to people for certain!

Never heard of urban planning before and only clicked the video because I thought the guy was hot TBH. BUT I'm glad I did because I thought it was really interesting

All this talk on Alien Nation and not one mention of Gary Graham

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

It was one of the single greatest realizations of my life when I finally understood that anything worth having doesn’t come easy. Friendship, career satisfaction, commitment, etc. Same thing with third place theory vs. right to the city. Great video!!!

A thing missing from the video and NA urbanist content are Cooperative Housing in my country they are very common the big ones are usually organized around a settlement often built with the cities involvement, but once they where built they are independent organizations who aren't dependent on political will. Surplus must also either be invested or given to the members (every tenant or person waiting to be a tenant is a member). It guarantees that profits made through rents are invested back into the community. A problem with the mostly tiny Co-ops in the US is that they don't have the money to expand which the way bigger ones in germany can. So every time new developments happen there are three parties who can build: the city through social housing, real estate developers and Co-ops. Co-ops have the big benefit that the big problem with the abandonment of maintenance that often happens with social housing doesn't happen.

Who cuts the grass ?

Bars are a shit third space cause you can’t talk there cause music overpowers all other noises.

Wow. I'm actually speechless. It's clear that this video took an immense amount of time and effort and I thank you for that! I've been trying to write more about cohesive, material solutions to the plethora of issues we face in the modern age, and this was tremendously helpful. THANK YOU!!

Leftists when someone else has a similar idea as them: 👿

Damn the male loneliness epidemic has been brewing longer than we thought

13:48 I hope someone can clarify my confusion around this quote. While I do believe he is grossly underestimating the material impact of decodifying racist laws, I do believe there to be an argument about the limitations of integration in a public space that is increasingly dwindling. Especially paired with the thought that people ultimately return to their segregated residential communities in lieu of some integrated public space. I don't know if I'm giving him too much benefit of the doubt here, but it doesn't seem this quote is particularly bad.

Incredible video, instant subscribe

Love that bros are still willing to jump into the super crowded Incels In Their Mom’s Basement Podcast space!

oldenburgs theory reduces to "saturdays are for the boys!!"

Oh hello new crush and video essayist making content specifically for my hyperfocus topic. The algorithm has finally completely solved my formula.

Dismayed, but not surprised by the number of YIMBYS doubling down in these comments. Rent in my home city has DOUBLED in the past 10 years because YIMBYism is a cancer on our housing market.

Great video. I think I agree with you, but the problem I'm running into is that the idea of a "third place" is quite clear in my mind, even if it doesn't quite match Oldenburg's definition. However, "right to the city" is relatively nebulous, at least to me. After this video, I have a pretty good idea of what "right to the city" isn't, but I haven't really absorbed much of what it is. I look forward to more of your videos, and hopefully more concrete examples.

I understand now that Oldenburg's definition of a third place is quite restrictive, and I think he attributed it's restorative qualities to the mutual masculinity aspect of fraternity rather than the mutual respect and localized equality aspect. I also understand that the loss of third places is not the prime suspect of alienation, but rather a symptom of capitalistic development, the true cause. A nostalgia for third places can definitely be a pit trap and tranquilizer if developing new third places is framed as an end goal or cure for alienation. No, it won't solve things. Yes, it plays into and defers power to the status quo. But also! I truly believe that third places - in a wider and more integrated vision than Oldenburg's - do connect us with our communities and do lots to create community resilience and bridge ideological divides. I think they are worth protecting where they exist or form, and are ultimately more useful as a stepping stone towards the right to the city than detrimental, so long as their absence is understood as a symptom of a greater issue and not as the root cause of alienation. With the right to the city, these places can be more easily protected. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that nostalgia for a third place can be a powerful draw and motivator to the right to the city movement, and existing (and integrated) third places can be fertile ground for resilient and organized communities. -- as you mentioned with queer spaces as great examples. It's all about understanding that the profit motive fuels alienation.

I haven't watched the whole video yet, but just to push back against the idea that the function of a library is to be a quiet, studious place: That applies to university libraries, maybe to school libraries, but definitely not modern public libraries. I agree that their main function isn't necessarily to provide a space for conversations, but it's definitely possible for people to use them that way. This isn"t me arguing against your main thesis, I don't really care if we hold onto the term of the third place or not. I just don't think it's helpful to narrow all libraries down to that.

Damn bro had until he brought “lord and savior” Karl Marx. It’s 2024, yall wanna cancel everyone but Karl Marx, one of the most racists people of his era.

32:10 which urbanist youtuber is claiming that? it’s certainly not most of them and if this was a response to one of them it would’ve been far more useful to address their claims directly than obfuscate as you have here. If most people discussing the topic haven’t read Oldenburg’s work on it, how useful can his definition actually be? He coined the term but that doesn’t negate the value in using it. I feel you’ve applied academic practice to a topic that wasn’t being discussed academically as a way to dismiss it entirely rather than looking at it holistically and seeing what value there is in on its own terms.

As a nerd I have my third place on flgs friendly local game store's. While not all are so inviting as to be third places. The successful ones that don't close after 3 years are. The industry exists in such a way that they have to be inviting long conversational spaces or the foot traffic and snack sales needed to stay open don't happen. Alot of flgs also exist as organization spaces for conventions. Most flgs that are doing ok run a convention once or twice a year to cover the costs of running the store more and make it more popular. I think flgs are really the only business that by definition has to become a third place to survive

This. Honestly I don't care how unrealistic it is, I always argue that no we don't need to build more, we need to fill the empty housing that we already have and subdivide giant empty mansions just sitting around. We do actually have the housing already, we just need to regulate the landlords and the corporations that own them into the fucking dirt.

His thing about 3rd places being where one (men) can walk in and just find friends to hang out with really highlights what's being missed in other essays on this. My issue is there's no place to hang with friends that ISN'T home or work that doesn't REQUIRE us to spend money we don't have to spend. Any local gathering place IS a bar or a restaurant, etc that expects us to be able to pay for service. And we can't. And our homes are not safe places to hang due to awful family or mental health struggles leaving the spaces too messy to gather in. It's a compound, systemic issue. Thank you for this video. I will be sharing it around my circles.

Brother i don't care about ray oldenburg being shitty i just want a nice place to read a book or chill. If not third places what do you want us to call them?

Libraries shouldn't be burdened by hosting a community?? Should it be a grocery store, efficient book shopping only. Then please go home or to your designated third place?

The left-right spectrum is a lie designed to limit the way we think about politics. It's the top .01% that is killing us while we fight left vs right. Elites like Tucker Carlson have openly admitted to stoking right-left aggression in order to prevent the masses from realizing who is really fucking us over.

I hear people use the term, "third place" a lot and had no idea it came from a book. Very informative video. I had heard if the "right to the city" before, but hearing it expanded upon got me very fired up.

Too busy to hang around and chat 😢

Wonderful video, thank you. My community suffers from municipal disinvestment and subsequent depopulation. I now know the academic way to name these instead of, "the damn homeowners dont take care of their rentals." Those who argue that, "community gardens can't address food insecurity" have CLEARLY never grown a garden.... 5 tomato plants and you'll be up to your ears in em.

The third place near where I used to live was a place called Apollo Super Burger. There would be a core group of oldies that went and hung out at the restaurant. They were there almost every night.

Hiiiiiiiiii :)

As someone who was always deeply uncomfortable with the idea of urbanism necessitating a greater degree of control being given to capitalist interests, this was incredible to find! Marrying my interests in creating more human centric urban spaces with leftist thought is almost…relieving, even with the knowledge that it still necessitates a long and difficult fight. Thank you!

"I don't want to be rewarded; I want to be right." YES! Immediately subscribed! 🤣

Commenting as I go so you at address this later - but I think most modern urban libraries (which are the ones most leftist creators are familiar with) and w good percentage of libraries throughout the US do serve the community center role. I don’t know many libraries in the places I’ve lived (two mid sized midwestern cities and a small rural town) that don’t have programming/events and gathering spaces for the community and a lot of folks seem to consider the library holistically with all the services it provides.

14:00 Idk dude, this quote doesn't seem to support your argument _at all._ Guy wasn't saying 'segregation is good, actually'. He was saying 'outlawing enforced segregation is only the start'. That residential segregation was still effectively a thing, and that was bad. That not allowing segregated third places is meaningless if there are no third places at all.

I almost skipped this because it sounded too mansplain-y. I think I skipped to the 20 minute mark or so…didn’t know that third places right leaning author was so anti-gay! You should probably start with that - its a better hook then whatever you were taking about for 20 minutes before. Homophobia is never ok, and you and Marx are totally on point about 3rd Placed being restorative enough to enable further exploitation. However! For kids who are too young to start being exploited (for now because lets be honest filthy capitalist are trying to send them back to the factories and mines) third places are important especially to show them there is an alternative to consumption. You can’t tell me the phenomenon of 12-year-olds buying thousands of dollars in product from Ulta and other beauty stores is an acceptable alternative to just being at the library or in the park or skate park or whatever. But if parents are alienated from their community because all they do is work all the time or they don’t go with a third place because they don’t wanna spend the money or they don’t wanna become addicted to alcohol or triggered because they’re a former alcoholic. The parents have no networks and might not have enough money to pay for childcare or afterschool programs. They might be too afraid to leave their child out in the parks without supervision at certain ages, or at all because our fear mongering media has them believing that they will immediately get kidnapped or trafficked or something. And They don’t know their neighbors so they’re not willing to trust them to supervise their children like other more communal societies like France do. When I first heard of third places, I thought of cafés where philosophers would exchange ideas or stores after hours where an employee would let their friends and community in to have discussions and debates like the old communist party members used to do. I think you’re discounting the generosity of managers and employees who might realize that they are being exploited and or might just provide a space for their community based on principal. My friend had a very fond memory of being in a Panera and playing DND, the employees letting them stay after hours and even giving them bread to eat and take home that was day old and needed to be thrown out.

Absolutely fascinating video. The historical element of your city was especially interesting, and it sounds like things are moving in a better direction. As an allotment grower in the UK it's interesting just how different things are here. Allotments might look like a similar land use as community gardens, but my experience is that they're fiercely individual in many places. Still have myriad benefits, but this really got me thinking about how insular they can be. They are often owned here by local councils or planning authorities. This usually means they're available to those on low incomes and plots are allocated fairly, but around most parts of the country there's a real shortage. It's not really the same as being owned by a community though. And the other common issue is people holding onto plots but not tending them. Loved the garden cleanse too - a fellow chilli grower!