Evidence base
Fortune
America Is Running Out of Places to Hang Out as Movie Theaters, Bars, Diners and Bowling Alleys Drop to All-Time Low
What it found
This Fortune report tracks the long-term decline of American "third places"—bowling centres, libraries, Elks lodges, and similar venues—citing steep drops in numbers and usage: bowling centres fell from about twelve thousand in the mid-1960s to under four thousand, library visits nearly halved between 2019 and 2022, and Elks lodge membership has dropped by half since 1976. It identifies rising costs, both of operating these venues and of attending them, as a primary driver of the decline.
Why it matters for practice
This is useful context for anyone designing community infrastructure or social connection interventions: it documents the erosion of informal, low-cost gathering spaces that programmes often assume still exist. Readers should treat the cost narrative as the reporter's explanatory frame rather than a tested causal finding, and look to dedicated research for mechanisms behind the decline.