Analysis Of Ray Oldenburg's 'The Great Good Place'

In the first chapter of his 1989 book The Great Good Place: Cafe’s, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of the Community, sociologist Ray Oldenburg argues that Americans are unhappy because they lack that third place, which, is in the middle of work and home life. The central cause is that we don’t have those shared places and the consequences are a result that we lose knowledge of manners and social interaction. Oldenburg argues that we don’t have a place to go and let out our stress because, either we go to work and add more stress. Then we go home and all we do is put all our emotion on the family and rely on them for everything but, that breaks down a family and is asking too much. A major effect …show more content…
He gives appropriate evidence of stress in the work place (10). The evidence he gives us on that claim is, more people have to go to the doctor because, of stress but, he needs to define the lifestyle. He doesn’t give us enough information so we have to speculate. Oldenburg says that “Americans can point to many areas where she made progress, but in the area of informal public life she has lost ground and continues to lose it” (13). This claim is appropriate of how he is saying that we can make progress in our everyday life of work, school but we can’t make effort in our community life. He wants us to make the shared places for people, to come together and help each other out and have that support. This claim is appropriate because, we need to make those third places where people can go and let out their stress. Generally, his argument has some appropriateness but, needs to have better …show more content…
Such as, Oldenburg says that it is easy to leave the suburbs; he is assuming that it’s important to form a connection with the places. Someone might have opposed to this argument because it seems people can form a community and connect without them finding it difficult to leave. People have lived in neighborhoods and have been sad to leave because, of the bond and the community they have formed among each other. Therefore, he needs to back up his support with that claim. Oldenburg is saying societies with a well-developed place and claiming that people in poverty aren’t in a burden because, they have things that money can’t buy (11); Oldenburg’s argument is incomplete because of the lack of evidence in support of his claim on poverty. A reasonable reader might argue with this because he needs more examples of personal stories on this claim and to back it up with support. Another reason Oldenburg’s argument is incomplete is that it fails to ask more questions to more people in America on how their community is shared throughout their life. Not all people feel isolated and stressed. He claims that kids are disconnected from parents because they work, (6) but he needs more information and examples on that claim in order to support it, because that’s not always the case. One of Oldenburg’s claims that makes his argument more consistent