What the U.S. can learn from Mexico’s community-focused design

On Sunday afternoons around 4 p.m., I leave my home in the center of Guanajuato and stroll over to a nearby park called Embajadoras. The market there closes early for Sunday comida, but families are still hanging out, kids are shrieking, old ladies are chatting and the vendors are doing a healthy trade. 

This park, with its inviting benches, trees and shrubbery, is a classic example of a “third place,” a term coined by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg in 1989 in his book “The Great Good Place,” referring to spaces outside of home and work where people can gather at an unhurried tempo — places like plazas, parks, markets, cafes, bars, hair salons and gyms. 

A place where all walks of society mingle

According to Oldenburg, these places offer neutral ground, where social status fades, and just hanging out and conversation are the whole point. 

My husband and I, in fact, made a major decision while chatting with an acquaintance in Guanajuato’s main plaza, known as the jardín, another third place. As we sat on a bench eating ice cream, our fellow Spanish student described his experience walking the 800-kilometer Camino de Santiago in Spain, which, back in 2001, was not as well known as it is today. We were so inspired that six months later, we became peregrinos (pilgrims), walking it ourselves.

Although a third place usually refers to a location, it can also be an event, such as the Guelaguetza Festival in Oaxaca and the International Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato, where I met my oldest local friend. In fact, every friendship I’ve made in Guanajuato has happened in a third place — at a plaza, a Spanish class or while hiking in the hills above town.

Third places are timeless. The earliest known one was the ancient agora in Greece — Athens’ civic and marketplace public square — in the sixth century B.C., followed soon after by the Roman forums, and later by Chinese teahouses in the eighth century. 

Mexico’s ‘third place’ culture

While third places continue to flourish in Latin America and Western Europe, the magazine The Week reports that they have been disappearing in the U.S. It’s no accident that loneliness and polarization are so rampant when it’s so hard to gather free of charge with friends and acquaintances in a relaxed environment.

On the other hand, third places are so common in Mexico that it’s odd when you visit a place without them. Most towns I’ve visited here are dotted with zócalos and squares of all sizes, plus benches, pedestrian streets, churches, markets and vendor stalls. 

Mexico is consistently ranked among the top countries globally for friendliness, thanks to its third-place culture and exceptional social environment. In fact, Mexico has its own third-place nonprofit, Fundación Placemaking, whose mission is “to inspire people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces at the heart of every community.”

Foreign residents help too: We bring additional third places to our adopted towns, such as English-language libraries and bookstores, educational centers like San Miguel’s Instituto Allende, at-home concerts, volunteer opportunities, intercambios, book clubs, workshops, conferences and yoga classes.

Why the decline of third places in the U.S. but not in Mexico?

In the U.S., the decline of third places began decades ago with the construction of wide suburban streets, but intensified dramatically in the last 15 years with the rise of social media and the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, in Mexico, where the same changes occurred, third places still thrive. What’s the difference?

Well, in Mexico, when people couldn’t meet indoors during the pandemic, rather than lock themselves away in their homes for weeks at a time, people turned to the country’s pedestrianized streets, its parks and open-air cafes, where safer interaction could take place. I remember meeting with a Spanish teacher, for example, at an outdoor cafe in 2021. We didn’t have to spend the equivalent of US $6 for a latte, and no waiter gave us the stink eye for lingering. Whether during COVID or during normal times, Mexico is a culture whose approach to time is flexible and fluid, one that welcomes loitering.

And while Mexicans obviously use their phones, data from the Pew Research Center and cross-cultural studies have found that Mexicans use them to facilitate in-person meetups, such as social gatherings, family events and dates — much more than people do in the U.S. It’s not always convenient to have all those in-person meetups happening at restaurants or other places that cost money.

Mexican street design encourages face-to-face interaction

Another reason Mexico excels in third places is that it has narrow urban setbacks, the required distance that a structure must be set back from the street. When buildings sit right up against the sidewalk, they create a “street room” — a sense of enclosure that feels safe and inviting to pedestrians.

Also, rather than have zoning restrictions that keep housing and commercial services far apart from each other, Mexican neighborhoods often seamlessly integrate residential, commercial and social spaces with little stores and street-food vendors. My husband, for example, often picks up a gordita at Guanajuato’s Plaza Baratillo, an area with vendors, shops and rentals all close together. 

Squares and plazas make people of all socioeconomic backgrounds feel welcome, which is ironic, as class distinctions are generally more rigid in Mexico than in the U.S. 

Enchanting as third places can be, their charm reflects a deep democratic value, the very foundations of civic life — where ideas circulate, decisions are made and friendships form. Wherever you are in Mexico, as you sit on a bench spooning up your cut-up fruit, watching the shoe shiners and listening to mariachis, you can take heart that you are helping to strengthen the fabric of community life.