A fun little interview with William J. Mitchell got me thinking about social capital - one of the themes of Chapter 05. In this I discuss Ray Oldenburg's "third places" theory. Oldenburg argues that since the 1950s, planners and architects have failed to incorporate what he terms "great good places" in their suburban development schemes. Great good places provide meeting spaces away from work and the home. They may be public or perhaps semi-public spaces, such as cafés, bars, and hair salons, but the key point is that they regularly bring us into contact with others, and encourage serendipitous encounters that extend our social ties.

The interesting thing about Mitchell's theory of the wirelessly-powered urban environment is that the "great good places" become significant not for what they actually provide in the way of face to face human interaction but rather as venues where it is acceptable to connect with others not present. How many times have you walked into a Starbucks, looked around, and realised that everyone in the shop is communicating with someone physically absent, via phone, text, or email? The urban environment provides a sort of skeletal architecture for these things to occur - chairs, coffee, heating - but do these "great good places" now actually work in the way Oldenburg wants them to?