Where Community Convenes:

Coffee Shops, Breweries and Other Great Third Places

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Neil ReidDepartment of Geography and PlanningUniversity of ToledoToledo, OH 43606

Presentation to the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Altoona Blair County Development Corporation

Austin Beerworks, Austin, TX

Outline

• Decline of Associational Life in America

• Third Places

• Craft Breweries – An Emerging Third Place?

• 11 Signs that Your City will Succeed

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Basecamp Brewing, Portland, OR

The Decline of Associational Life in America

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Democracy in America

“Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small . . .” (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)”

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1974 and 2016, the percent of adults who said they spend a social evening with a neighbor at least several times a week fell from 30% to 19%

Mid-1970s and 2012, the average amount of time Americans (25-54) spent with their coworkers outside the workplace fell from about 2.5 hours to just under 1 hour per week

1972 and 2016, the share of adults who thought most people could be trusted declined from 46% to 31%

Source: Social Capital Project, 2017

“The great challenge of our moment is the crisis of isolation and fragmentation, the need to rebind the fabric of a society that has been torn by selfishness, cynicism, distrust, and autonomy.” (David Brooks, The Death of Idealism, 2017)

6Source: Lazarovic 2019

“Most residential areas built since World War II have been designed to protect people from community rather than connect them to it” (Ray Oldenburg, 1996)

Third Places

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Third Places

• “Third places are nothing more than informal public gathering places.” (Oldenburg 1989).

• Exchange ideas, have a good time, and build relationships (Diaz 2016)

• The Living Room of society (Hickey 2012)

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The Space between the Individual and the State

THIRD PLACES

Third Places

• Neutral meeting places

• Inclusive; Everyone is welcome

• Conversation is the main activity

• Have regulars; people who go there on a regular basis

• Physically plain; Unpretentious ambience

• Mood is playful; Wit is prized

• A home away from home

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Tannery Bend Beerworks, Napa, CASource: Oldenburg 1989

Oldenburg’s Third Places

• German-American Lager Beer Gardens

• Main Street

• The English Pub

• The French Café

• The American Tavern

• Classic Coffeehouses

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Three Horseshoes Pub, in Batcombe, England

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Craft Breweries – An Emerging Third Place?

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Traditional Craft

Craft Breweries As Community Space

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Designed with the larger community in mind

Provide opportunities for people of like mind to come together and be a community (or rather lots of different communities)

The space they occupy is often flexible; within a few minutes it can be transformed to serve an alternative purpose

Migration Brewing, Portland, OR

• Colin Rath, co-owner

• Degree in Community Development from Portland State University

• Heard about Oldenburg’s Third Places

• Opened Migration in 2010

• Envisioned that it would be a Third Place, for those living in the neighborhood

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Migration Brewing An Intentional Third Place

“What we’ve created is what’s known as a third space…[Migration is] a place for the community to come together, that hosts the community, and a place that engages with the community and helps facilitate other people’s dreams and aspirations. It’s a place for people to celebrate, to mourn, to raise money for a cause or whatever their thing may be.”

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Renegade Brewing Company, Denver CO

“Our tasting room doesn’t have TV’s; it doesn’t need to. Instead of screens flashing advertisements and running results of the latest game, you’ll see the room filled with friends and families and you’ll hear the rumble of conversation accented with laughter. The tasting room is where our community comes together. It is where friendships are made, rekindled, or strengthened.”

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19Black Cloister Brewing Co., Toledo, OH

Hopworks Urban Brewery, Portland, OR

Begyle Brewing Company, Chicago.IL

20Tannery Bend Beerworks, Napa, CA Rhinegeist Brewery, Cincinnati, OH

Catawba Island Brewing Co., Port Clinton, OH

Breweries attract people“After just a year, the small brewery has brought good fortune to the town. After taking over an old Dollar General discount store in the sparsely occupied town square, the brewery-and-taproom has become a community hub and a catalyst keeping businesses open later. It’s encouraged others—including two new boutiques—to open shop, and has drawn visitors from across the region” (Patrick Sisson 2016)

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Hand of Fate Brewing, Petersburg, IL

Breweries can spur investment

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• Breweries can be pioneer investors

• Ohio City, Cleveland, OH

• Great Lakes Brewing Company opened in 1988

• Lower Downtown Denver, CO (LoDo)

• Wynkoop Brewing opened in 1988

• Both investments were catalysts for neighborhood revitalization

• Invested in “economically uncertain locations” (Barajas et al. 2017)

• Charlotte, NC

• NoDa neighborhood

• Breweries were not pioneer investors, but followed other investment

Challenge to Altoona

• Where are your existing Third Places?

• Are you utilizing these to their full potential?

• If not, why not? How can they be better utilized?

• Where are your potential (as yet unused) Third Places?

• Why aren’t these being utilized?

• What needs to happen for the community to utilize them?

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11 Signs a City will Succeed

• Solving local problems more important than national politics

• Local leader(s) are clearly identifiable

• Public-private partnerships work

• People know their civic story

• The downtown is vibrant (or becoming vibrant)

• There is a research university nearby

• The have, and care about, a community college

• They have unusual schools

• They are open-minded

• They have big plans

• THEY HAVE A CRAFT BREWERY

25Source: Fallows 2016

11 Signs a City will Succeed

Thank You

26www.thebeerprofessor.com