To our considerable misfortune, the pleasures of the city have been largely reduced to consumerism. We don’t much enjoy our cities because they’re not very enjoyable,” wrote Ray Oldenburg in The Great Good Place, his lament for the lack of US watering holes akin to French cafés and 18th-century English coffee houses.
Mr Oldenburg’s paean to these “third places” between home and work for citizens to drink and socialise with each other popped up in a strange context last week. Three decades after his influential book was published, the phrase was cited by Coca-Cola in the investor presentation for its ￡3.9bn purchase of Costa Coffee from Whitbread.
When Coke admits to a problem with consumerism, there is something wrong. That might account for the defensive tone of James Quincey, chief executive, about acquiring a chain of stores rather than another variety of flavoured liquid. “This is a coffee strategy, not a retail strategy,” Mr Quincey kept insisting to analysts.