THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 16, 1996 TAG: 9609160032
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 147 lines
Several mornings a week, a loose-knit cadre of coffee drinkers - and one tea sipper - slide onto their perches at the First Colony Coffee House in Norfolk's Ghent neighborhood.
``There's kind of an unwritten rule here. If you sit at the bar, you're in everybody's conversations. It's not bad manners to do that,'' said Thomas W. Thomas, owner of a nearby brake-repair shop. ``If you want privacy, you sit at a table.''
The talk ranges from the morning's newspaper headlines to memories of days gone by, from art to politics, from used cars to O.J. Simpson, from anything to everything. There's much good-natured banter.
``Some of the best jokes you'd ever hear, you'll hear in here,'' Rick Brahm boasted to a newcomer.
Ashley Enders leveled her gaze at Brahm. ``No they aren't,'' she said.
Across Norfolk in Roland Park, Kenneth Swoope has created his own spot for conversations - the Chances Restaurant & Lounge, which he took over 4 1/2 years ago.
Swoope said his approach to running Chances as a neighborhood bar was inspired by his childhood memories of a corner drugstore in Ballentine Place. The old Murden store, he said, included a soda-fountain counter that became a popular gathering point for neighbors.
``People would come in for limeade, coffee, read the newspaper, talk about what was going on in the neighborhood,'' recalled Swoope, now 33.
At Chances, Swoope tries to foster a sense of local loyalty. The bar supports the neighborhood civic league and block watch; it has spawned teams for darts, billiards, softball and bowling, some of which hold fundraisers for charity.
Regulars such as Kimie Porter and Stacy Addison say they like the familiar feel of Chances. ``We know that anytime we come here we'll run into somebody we know,'' Addison said.
Ray Oldenburg never met Swoope or sipped coffee at First Colony, but he knows what Swoope and the others are talking about.
In 1989, he wrote a book on the subject, ``The Great Good Place.''
And, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oldenburg will speak at Virginia Wesleyan College at a forum about the importance - and disappearance - of traditional community gathering points. Oldenburg believes the decline of these places helps make society less civil and hurts grass-roots democracy.
The event is being organized by Public Choices, a new group that hopes to foster more civil discourse and public deliberation on issues facing South Hampton Roads.
The discussion, forum organizers say, will be both timely and overdue for South Hampton Roads. Here, urban renewal has torn down dozens of old neighborhoods while suburban sprawl continues to roll across thousands of acres in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Suffolk.
``We expect to talk about suburban land planning and its influence, the influence of the automobile vs. public transit and walking, and consumerism that is focused on large shopping malls instead of small shops near home and work,'' said John D. Stewart, one of the forum's organizers. ``How can we retrofit the contemporary urban and suburban society?''
Oldenburg, a sociology professor at the University of West Florida, grew up in a small Minnesota town that once had a Main Street filled with mom-and-pop stores and sidewalk benches that invited easy conversation.
He now lives in a suburban subdivision in Pensacola, Fla. And, since his book was published, he has lost another of his favorite hangouts, the neighborhood doughnut shop where he used to stop on way to work.
``We're forced now to go to a Hardee's,'' he mourned over the telephone the other day.
Still, Oldenburg makes certain to pause there for morning coffee and conversation. That way he keeps in touch with a diverse collection of buddies - a helicopter instructor, a Sears retiree and a guy ``who used to build brick walls.''
For Oldenburg, the subject of local gathering places is not a nostalgic journey down memory lane.
He's talking about the health of American democracy and how it once drew nourishment from the free-wheeling conversations that occurred in community centers, cafes, coffee shops, neighborhood taverns and general stores across the nation.
Oldenburg calls these ``Third Places'' because they are the third ``realms of experience'' in society; the first two being home and work.
Third Places, Oldenburg says, help give communities their character as well as being convenient places where people can get to know one another outside home or work - ``where unrelated people relate.''
``The best Third Places function best if they're local, that is, in a residential area, and locally owned, not part of a chain,'' he said. ``They unite the neighborhood that they're in. Back in the old days, when the neighborhood tavern was still alive, they'd draw 80 percent of their customers from within a two-block radius.''
They also have a sense of openness - not necessarily meaning that everyone fits in the first time they go. But there's a spirit of tolerance and camaraderie that eventually will embrace most anyone who wants to become a regular.
``The regulars set the tone of conviviality,'' Oldenburg said. ``They're the ones who can make others feel at home.''
Third Places, Oldenburg says, also went far in setting the tone of politics for a locality - and even for a nation.
It wasn't necessary that folks talked politics in a Third Place, Oldenburg says. The political importance was in providing people with familiar places to learn and practice everyday civics - the give-and-take of conversing with neighbors and strangers in a public setting.
Oldenburg describes those ongoing public conversations as a ``vital informal public life.''
But, now, he says, too many gathering places have vanished - plowed under by urban renewal, vanquished by corporate competitors, zoned out of existence by short-sighted planners and knee-jerk politicians.
``The grass roots of our democracy are correspondingly weaker than in the past, and our individual lives are not as rich,'' he wrote in his book. ``Reinvigoration or restoration of grass-roots political involvement is essential, and the reestablishment of the gathering places necessary to it is just as essential.''
Many traditional Third Places, Oldenburg says, also allowed children and teens to mix with adults, creating a built-in sense of community continuity.
Too often, Oldenburg says, today's towns and cities try to isolate the different generations, inadvertently creating more suspicion and distrust.
``The thing that saddens me most since my book came out is that zero attention has been paid to the chapter on children,'' Oldenburg said.
On Thursday, Oldenburg will describe the trends that have undermined Third Places and, in his view, made America less civil.
But what to do?
Oldenburg will offer some ideas in a speech that he tentatively named ``Positive Provincialism.'' It's a notion that promotes inclusiveness and diversity as well local control.
While organizers of the forum will look to Oldenburg for guidance, they also believe that most answers ultimately must come from local communities - and citizens willing to talk with one another.
To foster such conversations, the forum will include time for people in the audience to talk with one another about Oldenburg's comments. The event will be held in the Virginia Wesleyan campus dining center, where everyone will sit around cafeteria tables - with friends and strangers - and discuss the ideas and what communities might do.
``The purpose of the evening is not to identify all the ills that we have created but rather to create a sense of hope,'' Stewart said.
Hope, Stewart said, can come through ``understanding what we have done to ourselves, understanding what we are missing and understanding the importances of these places and experiences . . . as the building blocks for getting more people to participate in public dialogue.''
Stewart does not expect firm answers to arise from one evening's worth of discussion.
He wants the talking to help people feel how a ``public voice'' begins to form and be spread among diverse groups of people.
``This will be a very brief exercise in public deliberation,'' he said. ``There will be very basic instructions that almost any group can use, whether it's your civic league, your church group, or you sitting down with a few neighbors.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Kenneth Swoope, owner of Chances Restaurant and Lounge, laughs with
Sandra Walck of Virginia Beach, a regular. Swoope says he tries to
foster a sense of local loyalty. by CNB