To be fair, those rural communities were largely self-sufficient. You didn't need a car to drive into the city to do anything. You could do everything right at

To be fair, those rural communities were largely self-sufficient. You didn't need a car to drive into the city to do anything. You could do everything right at home. This kept the community fairly tight-knit. In fact, with respect to the topic of third places, I was recently looking at an old township map of where my family's farm is located from the 1800s. What really stood out was that there was a church found approximately every mile. A little surprising by today's standards, but stands to reason when you think about it. I mean, what else were those people going to do? There wasn't much else to do other than socialize with your closest neighbours, providing sufficient concentration for a third place to emerge. Now imagine putting some kind of social centre every mile in those suburbs today. I don't see it working out too well.