Adam Greenfield on Nostr: Because, sure, I’ve spent plenty of time in my life in social centers and infoshops ...

Because, sure, I’ve spent plenty of time in my life in social centers and infoshops and free clinics, and similarly counterhegemonic spaces. But we talk about these things – we articulate their affordances and constraints, we valorize them, in some way they’re the furniture of our aspirations.

But I’ve spent just as much time, if not a good deal more, in coffee houses and bike shops and diners and video stores (remember them?) that are just kind of crap businesses, but vital and beloved social condensers. And other than, I guess, liberal “third place” theory, it feels like we just don’t have a way of talking about these spaces that captures their importance to us and our communities. Am I missing some body of thought?