The Vanishing Third Space: Where Did Our Public Places Go?

Sam Saenz
5 min readSep 14, 2024
Where’s your third spae? where do you go that’s not work and not school?

Free public third spaces are gone I tell you!

Even if you spend money, third spaces are basically obsolete.

Especailly in South Florida.

Let me explain.

The Only Thing You’ll Be Recharging Here is Your Frustration

I went to Whole Foods in Fort Lauderdale the other day to have a late coffee and an early lunch and work a bit. However, none of the plugs along the entire wall in their cafe area worked.

Believe it or not, this is actually an upgrade from the other Whole Foods in the Miami area which have their outlets completely removed/covered.

Miraculously, I managed to score the only table left and was able to sit and work, but for only 2 hours because that’s the amount of time this particularly Whole Foods let’s customers park in their parking garage for free.

So, at the end of my two hours I packed up and headed for a Starbuck’s halfway between Fort Lauderdale and my home in Miami.

Florida Where The Only Thing Rarer Than Free Parking is Snow

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Sam Saenz

UX Content Designer (https://samsaenz.com), Travel & Food Writer (https://eatwelladventureoften.com), and NLP (mindset) practitioner in Miami, Florida.