As the world grows rapidly in population, people are increasingly migrating towards urban areas. This trend presents a unique opportunity to study the Built Environment and its complexities. People today choose places to live primarily based on the vibrancy of the area, and not only on job opportunities. For designers, these behaviors elicit the need to investigate places that are currently vibrant, in order to understand its role in the daily lives of people. This thesis investigates the coffee shop experience as a third place and its associations with social capital and quality of life. A third place refers to pockets in the built environment where people meet, greet and linger. These social interactions form a shared entity, called social capital, which is best described by civic virtue embedded in a network of reciprocal relationships. Quality of life as it relates to place, refers to the satisfaction people experience as a result of their surrounding conditions, both physical and human. This study uses a survey method to collect data, which is analyzed using factor analysis to reduce variables which are then subjected to a correlation and multiple linear regression analysis. The findings of this thesis reveal that intangible qualities in the third place like experience- like cleanliness, appealing aroma, philosophy of management, attitude of staff and the taste of coffee in local coffee shops located along the Grand River Avenue Corridor, Lansing Area, Michigan are positively correlated to social capital, which is positively correlated to overall quality of life. These correlations imply that the coffee shop experience might enrich the lives of people. By investigating relationships between the coffee shop experience, social capital and quality of life, this thesis contributes to our knowledge of people and place, and its role in our daily lives.
Read
