The Way We Live Now

Home
Podcast
Notes
Third Places
Environment
China
Newsletters
About
Most Popular
View all
Why I resigned from Penn Press (or was I fired?)
 • Karen Christensen
17
MIT to build Great Barrington campus (April Fool's!)
 • Karen Christensen
8
Auld Lang Syne: a salute to old friends
 • Karen Christensen
4
Hard truths about publishing
 • Karen Christensen
8
My hillbilly elegy
 • Karen Christensen
3
Is your coffee shop a third place?
 • Karen Christensen

Third Places

View all
The 7 Places (and Spaces)
A controversial list presented for discussion and debate
 • 
Karen Christensen
7
Friday Triad: 3 new business models for third places
Social businesses worth a look
The political value of third places
Ray Oldenburg writes about the importance of informal association
Graveyards & garden cemeteries
Notes for Halloween 2024
 • 
Karen Christensen
3
Third places are popping up all over
Distilleries, coffee shops, trains and buses
 • 
Karen Christensen
2

China

View all
2025: Our common future
Wishing you a sense of wonder and spirit of hope
 • 
Karen Christensen
2

Environment

View all
Quietly vegan: Armenian Soup and more
There are a number of reasons to eat less meat - especially beef, and also dairy products - but it’s annoying to open a “green” cookbook and find that…
 • 
Karen Christensen
We need a new Earth Day
I did not get into my car last Saturday, Earth Day 2024 .
 • 
Karen Christensen
April Fool's note & new Home Ecology
My April Fool’s story has circulated far and wide, and will probably come back to haunt me.
 • 
Karen Christensen
Homesteading Part II: Greener Pastures
The best name I’ve seen for a back-to-the-land project is “Greener Pastures,” a Los Angeles consultancy I knew in the nineties.
 • 
Karen Christensen
Make a bag bouquet
It would be ideal to go entirely plastic-free, but as we move in that direction we can find practical ways to reduce and reuse the plastic that comes…
 • 
Karen Christensen
You can choose to get posts only on the topics you care about when you
© 2025 Berkshire Publishing Group
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture