Once place you'll find excellent public places in the US is behind the proximity-card gates of a good university.
Glorious, Gothic architecture reading rooms with hundreds of comfortable seats, power at each one of them, 100Mbit WiFi, and a cafe on site. Coffee shops with large seating areas, similar power and WiFi amenities, and no obligation to buy anything. Dorms have common rooms and lounges where students hang out long into the night, with several conversations going and Super Smash Brothers on the TV in the background. My school's housing system is designed around "houses" of 50-100 students occupying vertical slices of the dorms, and in most you can wander into your house lounge at any hour and be around your friends. Many universities are laid out around quadrangles, and on a nice day on the vast green space you'll see classes sitting in circles, students leaning on trees reading, a few frisbees in the air, etc. Depending on the social climate, drinking may be allowed in dorm common spaces (a more subdued, conversational kind of party than a bumpin' rager you'll find at a frat).
I wish I could have access to that kind of thing again after graduation. I'll miss it. Public libraries and most commercial coffee shops don't come close.
Glorious, Gothic architecture reading rooms with hundreds of comfortable seats, power at each one of them, 100Mbit WiFi, and a cafe on site. Coffee shops with large seating areas, similar power and WiFi amenities, and no obligation to buy anything. Dorms have common rooms and lounges where students hang out long into the night, with several conversations going and Super Smash Brothers on the TV in the background. My school's housing system is designed around "houses" of 50-100 students occupying vertical slices of the dorms, and in most you can wander into your house lounge at any hour and be around your friends. Many universities are laid out around quadrangles, and on a nice day on the vast green space you'll see classes sitting in circles, students leaning on trees reading, a few frisbees in the air, etc. Depending on the social climate, drinking may be allowed in dorm common spaces (a more subdued, conversational kind of party than a bumpin' rager you'll find at a frat).
I wish I could have access to that kind of thing again after graduation. I'll miss it. Public libraries and most commercial coffee shops don't come close.