Palaces for the People

What the Leisure Facility of 2035 Looks Like

I. The Name We Borrow

Eric Klinenberg called them "palaces for the people."

In his 2018 book of the same name, the NYU sociologist argued that social infrastructure — the physical places and organisations that shape how people interact — is as important to the health of a community as roads, bridges, and utilities. He showed that libraries, parks, community centres, and public spaces aren't amenities. They're infrastructure. And when they're well-designed and well-funded, they do something that no digital platform can: they bring people together across lines of class, age, race, and ideology, in the same physical space, for a shared experience.

"The future of democratic societies rests not simply on shared values but on shared spaces."

I love that framing. Not shared values — shared spaces. The physical act of being in the same room.

Klinenberg's phrase — "palaces for the people" — was aspirational. He was describing what public spaces could become if society invested in them with the same seriousness it invests in physical infrastructure.

This paper takes the phrase literally. Because the leisure industry is in a position to build them. Not as publicly funded civic projects — though those have their place — but as commercially viable, community-centred facilities that serve as the primary social infrastructure of their neighbourhoods.

The facility of 2035 isn't a gym. It isn't a wellness centre. It isn't a coworking space. It's all of these, integrated into a single community hub.

A palace for the people — built by the leisure industry, funded by multiple revenue streams, staffed by a new class of community professional, and designed from the ground up to provide the thing that modern life has stopped providing: belonging.

III. The Revenue Model

The integrated community hub operates on eight distinct revenue streams — compared to the one or two that a traditional gym relies on:

Here's what strikes me about this table: it's not a wishlist. Every single one of these revenue streams already exists in isolation. There are gyms doing corporate partnerships. There are coworking spaces with cafes. There are leisure centres running NHS-funded programmes. The innovation isn't inventing new revenue — it's putting all eight under one roof.

The diversification is the strategic advantage. A traditional gym competes on one dimension: price per membership. The integrated hub competes on multiple dimensions simultaneously. It's harder to replicate. It's more resilient to economic downturns (healthcare funding and corporate contracts are less discretionary than individual memberships). And it generates higher revenue per square metre because the same physical space serves multiple functions throughout the day.

The morning is for early risers and senior programmes. The mid-morning shifts to coworking and rehabilitation. Lunch brings communal dining and drop-in fitness. The afternoon serves youth programmes and corporate wellness. The evening peaks with group fitness and social programming.

Every hour is revenue-generating. Every space is multi-use.

V. Three Archetypes

The integrated community hub doesn't look the same in every context. Three archetypes, adapted to their settings, illustrate the range.

The Urban Hub

Setting: City centre or inner suburb. Dense population. High commercial rents. Limited space.

Design: Vertical and compact. Multiple floors, each serving a different function: fitness on one level, coworking on another, events on a third, wellness services on a fourth. Efficient use of space. High throughput. Extended hours (5am to 10pm).

Demographic: Young professionals, remote workers, corporate partnership members, Gen Z. High proportion of single-person households.

Differentiator: The urban hub replaces the office, the gym, and the social venue simultaneously. It becomes the centre of daily life for remote workers who live alone in small apartments. The post-workout coffee area is as strategically important as the gym floor.

Revenue emphasis: Coworking, corporate partnerships, boutique fitness pricing.

The Suburban Hub

Setting: Suburban town centre or retail park. Moderate rents. More space available. Car-dependent access.

Design: Single-storey or low-rise, with generous social space. Larger footprint. Parking. Outdoor areas — a garden, a terrace, a track. Child-friendly zones. Senior-accessible throughout.

Demographic: Families, older adults, post-retirement, youth. Mixed age. The facility serves as the neighbourhood's primary gathering place — the role once played by the church, the community centre, or the pub.

Differentiator: The suburban hub is intergenerational by design. A grandparent, a parent, and a child can all use the facility simultaneously. Senior programming runs alongside youth programmes. Family events are core to the calendar.

Revenue emphasis: Family memberships, senior/insurance-funded access, events and venue hire, healthcare partnerships.

The Rural Hub

Setting: Small town or rural community. Low rents. Large available space. Limited alternative social infrastructure.

Design: Multipurpose community centre model. A single, adaptable space that transforms throughout the day: fitness in the morning, coworking by day, community events in the evening. Shared-use partnerships with local schools, churches, or councils.

Demographic: The entire community. In a rural setting, the hub isn't competing with other social infrastructure — it may be the only social infrastructure. It serves as gym, community centre, meeting place, cafe, and social service access point.

Differentiator: The rural hub is essential infrastructure. In communities where the pub has closed, the church is half-empty, and the nearest gym is 30 miles away, a well-designed leisure-community hub becomes the heart of the town.

And here's the part that really gets me about the rural model: there's no alternative. In an urban setting, if the hub doesn't work, people can find belonging somewhere else. In a rural community, this might be it. The last gathering place. That's not a business opportunity — it's a lifeline.

Revenue emphasis: Local authority partnerships, NHS/social prescribing funding, community memberships, event hosting, grant funding.

VII. The 2035 Vision

It's 2035.

You wake up in a small apartment. You live alone — one of the growing majority who do. You dress and walk fifteen minutes to the community hub down the road. You check in with a nod to the front desk — they know your name; they've known it for three years.

You take a 7am class with the same group you've been training with since you joined. You know their names. They know yours. You suffer through the same workout. You laugh at the same jokes. After class, you shower, buy a coffee, and sit at a desk in the workspace upstairs.

You work for four hours. You eat lunch in the communal area with two people from your class and one person from the coworking floor you've got to know over the past few months. The conversation is easy. Nobody's networking. Nobody's performing. You're just people, in a place, eating together.

In the afternoon, you notice a poster for a community dinner on Friday. You sign up. Your physiotherapist, who works out of the wellness suite on the ground floor, sends you an update on your shoulder recovery. The senior walking group passes through the lobby on their way to the park, and one of them — a 78-year-old retired teacher you partnered with during a charity challenge last month — waves and asks if you're coming to the quiz night.

You finish your work at 4pm. You take a second class — a lighter one, yoga or mobility. You chat in the changing room. You walk home.

You've exercised. You've worked. You've socialised. You've eaten with friends. You've been greeted by name, asked how you are, and noticed when you arrived. You've, in the space of a single building and a single day, received the things that used to require an office, a church, a community centre, a cafe, a sports club, and a circle of friends.

You've belonged.

That's the palace for the people. That's what the leisure industry can build. Not in a decade. Not with a revolution in technology or policy. With a shift in self-understanding. With the recognition that the industry isn't selling exercise. It's building the social infrastructure of the 21st century.

And the blueprints are already in its hands.

The Blueprint Is for Your Building

You don't need to build a palace from scratch. You need to see the palace that's already hiding inside the facility you have.

Every leisure centre, every gym, every studio has underused hours, underused spaces, and untapped community potential. The eight revenue streams in this article aren't theoretical — they're a checklist. Which ones are you already running? Which ones could you add in the next six months? A coworking corner. A corporate partnership. A senior morning programme funded by social prescribing. A Friday evening community supper.

The shift isn't about capital expenditure. It's about self-understanding. The moment you stop thinking of your facility as a gym and start thinking of it as social infrastructure — as the community hub your neighbourhood is desperate for — everything changes. Your programming changes. Your staffing changes. Your revenue model changes. Your impact changes.

You're not just running a business. You're building the kind of place that people organise their lives around. That's rare. That's powerful. And in the decade ahead, that's what wins.

Read the next piece. It's a manifesto — a call to arms for everyone in this industry who senses that something bigger is happening.