The Heart Of A Neighborhood

Michael Hickey thinks bars are overlooked in the creation of liveable neighborhoods:

The vaunted “third space” isn’t home, and isn’t work—it’s more like the living room of society at large.  It’s a place where you are neither family nor co-worker, and yet where the values, interests, gossip, complaints and inspirations of these two other spheres intersect.  It’s a place at least one step removed from the structures of work and home, more random, and yet familiar enough to breed a sense of identity and connection.  It’s a place of both possibility and comfort, where the unexpected and the mundane transcend and mingle.
And nine times out of ten, it’s a bar.

I have to say that of all the things a big city has to offer, the only ones I'm really interested in are neighborhood bars and public transportation.  That was one of the best things about my sister's neighborhood in Chicago, there were bars all over the place.  And each had its own personality.  One I went to a couple of times was owned by an old Macedonian immigrant lady who had lived through World War II in the old country.  The other customers were all regulars, and the one had been coming there for fifteen years or so.  Everybody was friendly, and the owner even offered to find be a nice Macedonian wife.   Bars can foster the community feeling of small town life, even in a giant, ever changing city.