2B - Changing Places Flashcards
What is a place?
A place is a location that has different meanings to various people.
What 3 factors make up a place?
Location - the physical point (coordinates)
Locale - Locations in a place that are associated with everyday activities (school, theatre, hospital, etc.). A locale structures social interactions and people are likely to show behavioral traits specific in a locale.
Sense of place - the subjective emotional attachment to a place that gives it meaning.
How important is ‘place’ in human life and experience?
Places are extremely important to human life and experience as they can be interacted with every day and/or hold incredibly meaningful memories to people.
Why might different people have different perceptions of and attachment to the same place?
3
The sense of place is the different meaning of the place to different people.
For example, for one person, they may have lost a member of family in that place whereas, for another, they may have been proposed to in the same place.
This will leave the latter with an incredibly joyous perception of that place whereas the other person will attach it to a sense of grief. These two people will have a contrasting sense of place.
What is placelessness?
6
Placelessness suggests that a place is not unique.
For example, most UK high streets have Costa Coffee, Greggs, Ladbrokes, and a Tesco (or similar chain shops).
If these are the locales that structure interactions and help develop a sense of place and they are the same or similar in different locations, then what makes these locations different?
They are clone towns due to the dominance of chain shops.
It could also be argued that as the place is about people and different people will interact in the different locales, then these places are in fact unique.
The individual memories which people create within their locales are what makes the area unique to them.
4 types of place
Near, Far, Experienced, Media
What are near places?
4
Those which are close to us.
Near places are subjective. A woman living in the Australian outback may consider a place that is 100km away to be near, due to the ability to directly drive between settlements across the outback.
In the UK a place that is 100km away may take several hours to travel to and may be considered as a far place.
It may take longer to drive from London to Scotland than to get the Eurostar to Paris
What are far places?
4
Those that are distant.
Both near and far places may have a more emotional meaning.
Some people may get ‘homesick’ if they are staying away for the first time in their lives even if they are only a ten-minute drive away.
They may feel ‘far’ away emotionally, even if they are physically close.
What are experienced places?
3
Places that we have actually visited.
Some people would argue that you have to visit a place to create an emotional attachment to it.
Others would suggest that a desire to visit a place or dislike towards it because of what you have seen through the media, is enough to create an emotional attachment
What are media places
3
Places we have not visited but may have learned about through media representations.
Most geographers would argue you have a more intense experience by visiting a place, which leads to a stronger attachment to it, due to the stimulation of all your senses.
Media sources can change our sense of place subconsciously.
What is Genius Loci?
2
Genius loci is the spirit of a place.
It suggests that every place has a unique spirit or atmosphere, based on everything for the location is made up of, now and in the past.
What is place character?
2
Place character relates to the specific qualities, attributes, or features of a location that make it unique.
Place character is affected by endogenous and exogenous factors.
What is an Endogenous factor?
Those which originate from within the place and are local
8 endogenous factors
Land use - urban or rural?
Topography - the relief and lie of the land
Physical Geography - are there natural features such as waterfalls or estuaries?
Infrastructure
Demographic Characteristics - age, gender, ethnicity, etc.
Built Environment - The architecture of the area (contemporary, historical, etc.)
Location - Elevation, distance to the coast, etc.
Economic characteristics - In debt, growth market, economic sectors, etc.
What is an exogenous factor?
Those which originate from outside a place and provide linkages and relationships with and to other places.
4 exogenous factors
Flow of People - Impact of tourists, workers, migrants, refugees, visitors, and changing quantities of people on an area over time
Flow of Money and Investment - Trade deals, tax, major events (e.g. sports competition), new businesses, or movement of business from an area
Flow of Resources - Availability of raw materials, products, food, water, and energy
Flow of Ideas - Entrepreneurs may move to an area bringing new businesses with them. Ideas could be information about an area from another country.
What is an ‘insider perspective’ of a place?
2
Insiders are those people who feel at home within the place and may have the following characteristics:
- Born in the place
- Hold citizenship
- Fluent in local language and conform with idioms (language relating to a specific location or culture).
- Conforms with social norms and behavioral traits common in the place
What is an ‘outsider perspective’ of a place?
9
Opposite to insiders.
Lots of factors can contribute to making someone feel like an insider or outsider in a place. This feeling of belonging can change over time.
Initially, they may not be accustomed to the culture, social norms, and dialect of the majority of the community.
The shops and restaurants along the high street may not be familiar to them.
They may find it hard to find particular foods which they had in their country of origin.
The architecture of the buildings and the vehicles on the street may look different from what they are used to. (These feelings could be similar to how you feel when you go on holiday and your surroundings are different from usual).
The children of an immigrant family will have a different experience of place to their parents, leading to a unique sense of place for the area where they live.
This feeling of being an outsider can also occur after large-scale regeneration projects, which lead to changes in place character.
The demolition and reconstruction of buildings, investments into new facilities, and subsequent better quality of life can alter the demographic of an area. This can potentially cause the original population to feel like outsiders.
What is ethnic ‘clustering’?
2
All over the world, including the UK, there is a pattern whereby ethnic groups cluster in certain areas, potentially because people feel more at home surrounded by other people sharing the same ethnicity.
The clustering means that the area will adapt to that culture over time, which may attract more people from that ethnicity to move there.
What is Gentrification?
4
The process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.
Middle-class people will move to a more affordable area with a ‘buzz’ or ‘character’ and this will cause new shops to move in to fit with the new target demographic.
Gentrification is a complex process involving new flows of investment and people into previously neglected and declining places.
Gentrification has people-led (or ‘bottom-up’) and institutional (or ‘top-down’) causes. It usually results in the (re)creation of wealthier neighborhoods but is also associated with rising inequality, both between and within places.
Gentrification - 4 main areas affected
Property and land values
Environmental quality
Social Issues
Community cohesion
What are the 10 various ways places are given ‘place-specific meanings’?
Capital-intensive regeneration
Through advertising and representation in the media
State intervention and private sector inward investment
Land-use change: introduction of new schools and universities
Activities of artists, photographers, writers, musicians, and film directors
Prime employment sector e.g. Liverpool - docks, Manchester - warehouses + factories, Old street - silicon roundabout
The historical element of the place e.g. York is known for its historical buildings
Events such as making them culture capital through the help of the EU
Making them excel at one specific factor e.g. science or sustainability
New city slogan
Different stakeholders that create place-specific meanings
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International, national, and local government
Corporate bodies and tourist agencies
Community/local groups and individuals
