The U.S. Surgeon General has declared loneliness a public health crisis.

Americans participate in fewer in-person civic and community groups than they did decades ago.

Close friendships typically form through repeated, face-to-face interaction, not through intention alone.

Some marginalized communities are preserving the kinds of social spaces that mainstream life has lost.

Every time someone says we’re in a loneliness epidemic, the advice sounds suspiciously individual: join a gym, download a friend app, go to therapy, try harder. But what if loneliness isn’t a personal failure at all?

The U.S. Surgeon General has declared it a public health crisis. Research has shown that chronic loneliness is associated with depression, cardiovascular disease, and even increased mortality risk. Headlines warn that Americans have fewer friends than ever before and give us advice on how to make more friends, as though the issue is simply our unwillingness or our lack of know-how. We debate whether smartphones ruined us, whether remote work isolated us, whether dating apps replaced real intimacy.

But what if we are asking the wrong question? Instead of asking why individuals feel lonely, maybe we should be asking where the infrastructure for belonging went.

For decades, sociologist Ray Oldenburg argued that healthy societies depend on “third places,” informal public gathering spaces outside home and work where people interact regularly and build relationships. (Think: neighborhood bars, bowling leagues, churches, hobby groups, volunteer organizations.)

“Third places” are places where we can connect with others that isn’t our home (our first place) or our workplace (our second place). A “third place” is where we once bumped into people over and over again until they turned into real friends in places like bars,........

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