Ray Oldenburg’s suggestion of a “third place” resonates most strongly with the importance of small businesses. Suggesting they are a kind of “home away from home”, he equates these places with something more than financial or economics, something more personal. These places may not necessarily be small businesses, but they definitely often are.
Certain neighborhood businesses, everyone knows, is just the place to go sometimes. Whether it’s the pizza place, a diner, or a movie theater, specific places within a neighborhood evoke a nostalgic or homey quality to the neighborhood; they are just the places that everyone goes to. I’ve definitely found this to be true. In my own neighborhood, people will hang around in the park, friendly and all to complete strangers. People will go to the local cafe and chat over coffee while overlooking the Long Island Railroad. It is perhaps these unique qualities of a neighborhood that make people so attached to where they live. From all the places that I have considered home, my attachment to the place did not derive from the wonderful qualities of my actual living space, but of the people around me and what they had to offer. I have felt this at my own home, at sleepaway camp, and even in college at this point. The idiom “home is where the heart is” expounds this idea.
This is not all to say Sharon Zukin is wrong. She actually articulates another facet of the importance of small businesses. She does explain their importance in diversifying their communities, but she also is right in describing people as wanting an authentic life. Small businesses contribute to the atmosphere of a community; if big businesses dominated instead, the community would be no different from any other, and thus, the idea of hominess becomes obscure. When every place mirrors one another, there is no individuality to a neighborhood, and the neighborhood simply becomes the product of higher interests, that is, the wealthy.
