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The purpose of this study was to explore the ability of place attachment to predict place-specific and general pro-environment behavioural intentions. The study sample (n 1⁄4 355) consisted of visitors to a Canadian national park, Point Pelee National Park. The place attachment scale utilized in this study was designed to measure three subdimensions: place identity, place dependence, and place affect. Explor- atory factor analysis of data measured by these scales revealed two place attachment subdimensions. Place affect, an individual’s emotions and feelings for a place, acted as a more generalized or pervasive phenomenon. Place affect items loaded on both the place identity (an individual’s cognitive assessment of a place) and place dependence (an individual’s functional assessment of a place). Structural equation modeling confirmed the strength of place attachment’s ability to predict place-related pro-environment intentions. It also identified place attachment’s prediction of pro-environment behavioural intensions related to everyday life. Place identity mediated the effects of place dependence in predicting pro- environment intentions. Further research which utilizes in-depth and longitudinal case studies is sug- gested to explore the role of place-specific emotion and feelings, as well as place identity in fostering environmentally-responsible action as these factors are theorized to play an important role in promoting pro-environmental behaviour. Studies of place attachment to everyday settings rather than iconic national parks are also called for.

Epidemiology, sociology, and geography have been successful in re-establishing interest in the role of place in shaping health and health inequalities. However, some of the relevant empirical research has relied on rather conventional conceptions of space and place and focused on isolating the ‘‘independent’’ contribution of place-level and individual-level factors. This approach may have resulted in an underestimate of the contribution of ‘place’ to disease risk. In this paper we argue the case for extensive (quantitative) as well as intensive (qualitative) empirical, as well as theoretical, research on health variation that incorporates ‘relational’, views of space and place. Specifically, we argue that research in place and health should avoid the false dualism of context and composition by recognising that there is a mutually reinforcing and reciprocal relationship between people and place. We explore in the discussion how these theoretical perspectives are beginning to influence empirical research. We argue that these approaches to understanding how place relates to health are important in order to deliver effective, ‘contextually sensitive’ policy interventions. r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This study examines a behavioral model using latent variables of leisure involvement, place attachment, and destination loyalty among recreationists walking their dog in urban parks. A total of 928 usable questionnaires were collected. The confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were analyzed using LISREL 8.70 for Windows. Empirical results indicate that leisure involvement (i.e., attraction and self expression) and place attachment (i.e., place identity and place dependence) accurately predict the destination loyalty of recreationists walking their dogs in urban parks. Findings of this study demonstrate that the proposed behavioral model is a highly effective means of examining the causal relationships among leisure involvement, place attachment, and destination loyalty. A series of managerial implications and recommendations for further studies are drawn.

There is a growing body of evidence that indicates that for creating civic consciousness and sustaining urban identity and memory people need civic interaction and social reconciliation, which are promoted by public open spaces. However, in an era of globalisation, public open spaces are mostly discussed in relation to privatisation, disappearance, obsolescence and loss of place identity, leading to urban decay problems in many city centres. The aim of this study is to propose a research method for monitoring changes in place identity in public open spaces to set the right objectives and policies in the design process of these spaces for keeping them alive and for sustaining public life. In this context, a case study was conducted in Bursa’s Republic Square in Turkey, using different interpretive historical, quantitative and qualitative strategies. The main findings of the case study are that there has been a gradual decline in sense of place in recent years, although the architectural and artistic elements of the area and the name of the place are still effective in defining the identity of the area.

Sense-of-place writings have proliferated in recent years, yet research suffers from a relative lack of construct clarity and hypothesis testing. This research presents a model of sense of place based in conventional social psychology: cognitions, attitudes, identities, and behavioral intentions located in and fundamen- tally about place. A survey of property owners in Vilas County, Wisconsin, revealed the importance of symbolic meanings as underpinning both place satisfaction, con- ceptualized as an attitude toward a setting, and attachment, conceptualized as per- sonal identification with a setting. In turn, attachment, satisfaction, and meanings all have independent effects on willingness to engage in behaviors that maintain or enhance valued attributes of the setting.

This study introduces theory about how deficits in social support motivate consumers to replace lost social resources by forming relationships with customers and employees in commercial “third places.” The authors demonstrate sup- port for a multiple-indicator, multiple-cause model that illustrates how six common events that destroy or erode a person’s social support can cause the person to obtain emotional support and companionship in a third place. The model supports the linkage between commercial social sup- port and a consumer’s sense of attachment to a third place that harbors his or her social support network. The authors also propose and test hypotheses that reveal that consumers obtain social support in a third place to the extent to which they lost it outside the place. In essence, third-place patrons match their lost support to their commercial support, thus remedying negative symptoms associated with isolation. The article concludes with a discussion of managerial implications and limitations.

Urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg defines a third place as a place of refuge other than the home or workplace where people can regularly visit and commune with friends, neighbors, coworkers, and even strangers. Because little is known about the place-based physical qualities of third places that support sociability and place attachment, this article examines how four urban design characteristics distinguish third-place businesses from other businesses on the Main Street. The article discusses a study conducted at Main Streets in two cities and one town in Massachusetts. As part of the study, visual surveys measured urban design qualities of businesses on the Main Streets, and interviews helped determine user perceptions. The findings suggest that third places are relatively high in both personalization (distinctiveness, recognizability) and permeability to the street, but seating and shelter provisions are perhaps the most crucial urban design characteristics that contribute to sociability on the Main Street.

The aim of this paper is to bring the concept of place identity into the context of intergroup relationships in urban place, using the social identity approach. A field study was conducted in four adjacent neighbourhoods in the city of Lisbon, in order to explore the influence of place identity on the perception of the participants’ own neighbourhood and its residents (in-group) and of the other neighbourhoods and their residents (out-groups). The results showed that place identity was highly correlated with neighbourhood satisfaction, relevant out-group differentiation, and favouritism to the in-group and depreciation of the relevant out-group. The results also enabled the identification of three types of possible relationships between the groups: a relevant out-group for comparison, an idealized reference group for approximation, and a devaluated group for avoidance. Moreover, in this study, we extend the predictions of SIA to the comprehension of specific distance estimation distortion patterns.

This study attempts to understand the public evaluation towards elements that exist within the temporal dynamics of the cities. In particular the study explores the extent to which street vendors in Jakarta are evaluated as ‘out of place’ elements at day time and night time. The findings suggest that the users’ evaluation of street vendors as ‘out of place’ change from day time to night time. The change of users’ evaluation also varies across different urban places. In particular the study suggests that the presence of street vendors seems to be less unacceptable (out of place) at night time. Such knowledge regarding the dynamic of ‘out of place’ evaluation becomes important in making the decision about temporary urban elements in the city.

Four urban public spaces, representing various designs and microclimates, were investigated in Gothenburg, Sweden, in order to estimate how weather and microclimate affect people in urban outdoor environments. The research strategy was both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary and included scientists from three disciplines: architecture, climatology and psychology. The project is based on common case studies carried out during four seasons, including measurements of meteorological variables, interviews and observations of human activity at each place. Multiple regression analysis of meteorological and behavioural data showed that air temperature, wind speed and clearness index (cloud cover) have a significant influence on people’s assessments of the weather, place perceptions and place-related attendance. The results support the arguments in favour of employing climate sensitive planning in future urban design and planning projects, as the physical component of a place can be designed to influence the site-specific microclimate and consequently people’s place-related attendance, perceptions and emotions.

In recent years, local activists in the Global North and South have been organizing to improve degraded and abandoned spaces in marginalized neighborhoods by creating parks, playgrounds, urban farms, or community gardens. This paper integrates existing knowledge on urban place attachment and sense of community with scholarship on environmental justice in order to understand the role of place attachment in environmental mobilization in distressed neighborhoods across political systems and urbanization contexts. It examines the different forms of connections that activists develop and express toward neighborhoods with long-time substandard environmental conditions and how their experience of the neighborhood shapes their engagement in environmental revitalization projects. This comparison of three neighborhoods in Barcelona, Boston, and Havana shows that activists in all three places intend for their environmental endeavors to express grief at the loss of community, fears of erasure, and emotional connection and feelings of responsibility to place. To address environmental trauma, they aim to construct nurturing, soothing, “safe havens,” recreate rootedness, and remake place for residents.

“Sense of place” is a widely discussed concept in fields as diverse as geography, environmental psychology, and art, but it has little traction in the field of public health. The health impact of place includes physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and aesthetic outcomes. In this article, the author introduces a sense of place as a public health construct. While many recommendations for “good places” are available, few are based on empirical evidence, and thus they are incompatible with current public health practice. Evidence-based recommendations for healthy placemaking could have important public health implications. Four aspects of the built environment, at different spatial scales—nature contact, buildings, public spaces, and urban form—are identified as offering promising opportunities for public health research, and potential research agendas for each are discussed.

This article deals with women's use of public space and sense of place in El Raval, a neighbourhood located in the historical center of Barcelona. Attention will be paid to discover to what degree the existence of a quality public space fosters the creation of socially meaningful places, thus contributing to the construction of women's sense of place and urban identities. A qualitative approach, based on direct observation and in-depth interviews with women living in the neighbourhood, has allowed us to capture the main aspects of the building of a sense of place and belonging, that is the use of public space and facilities, the attitude towards living in the neighbourhood, etc.

This thesis sets out to examine whether incorporating local independent or small regional chain retailers and restaurants along with national chain stores in new large scale open-air retail developments can help add to a “sense of place” in these projects and thus make them more successful. New retail developments of the past two decades, often called Lifestyle Centers, Urban Entertainment Centers, Town Centers or New Main Streets, attempt through design to create a “place.” However, unlike traditional Main Streets or other locales that come to mind when thinking of distinctive “places” to shop, the tenants in these centers seem to be largely the same as those in regional malls—ubiquitous national chain stores. Due to this lack of local, unique content, these projects in many cases seem to be more a repackaging of the regional mall formula than truly successful attempts at place making. However, despite several challenges to tenanting independent businesses, some owners of new, what I refer to as, Place Making Centers have nonetheless taken a more proactive role in varying their tenant mix so as to better differentiate and reflect the local character of these projects; consciously dedicating a substantial percentage of their retail space for smaller local or regional retailers. This suggests that for some developers and projects these obstacles can be overcome, and that there is some perceived added value, place making or otherwise, to incorporating these businesses. In this thesis, I argue that place making, besides a physical act, also involves an intangible social and cognitive quality. I also assert that independent business can contribute to sense of place by contributing spaces more likely to promote social interaction and adapt over time and by providing a sense of uniqueness, rootedness and authenticity. Furthermore, the characteristics that contribute to the likelihood and/or viability of incorporating independent businesses in a project fall into three categories—owner characteristics, project financing and economics, and market characteristics. In projects that successfully overcome these obstacles, independent businesses are shown to further place making’s aim of overall and long-term value creation, suggesting that incorporation of these retailers should be strongly considered by developers of new retail formats.

This paper explores the place-based meanings of an urban public space, MacArthur Park, in a Latino and immigrant neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. Both quantitative and qualitative data analysis revealed a broad range of park experiences that were both positive and negative and produced meanings that were individual, social, cultural, and political. The study found that MacArthur Park affirms traditional national, cultural, and ethnic identities for immigrants and supports their construction of a new, translocal and Central American identity in Los Angeles. Although the study found that the park also serves as a restorative, entertaining, and social space for park goers, these positive experiences were accompanied by negative experiences and meanings of the park related to maintenance and crime and conflicts associated with inequality and access, confirming the importance of considering the full range of social, cultural, and political meanings associated with place.

The literature on cities in the developing world equates segregation with the proliferations of enclaves and slums and tends to overlook how the people associated with those places are further segregated in public spaces and enclaves. To account for the symbolic partitioning of Metro Manila, I document the segregating practices of the residents of enclaves (villagers) and slums (squatters). These practices reveal a well-developed sense of place on both sides, a commitment to the relative status positioning of the two groups as expressed through their separation in space. A sense of place explains why squatters and villagers engage in segregating practices. It also enables us to identify other spatial practices that conform to or challenge its logic. Integrating practices are largely consistent with a sense of place, while desegregating practices challenge it and may set up or advance contentious situations. By using this approach we are better able to understand how class patterns of residential segregation are extended to encompass virtually all urban spaces where class interaction occurs.

‘Urban identity’ is high on the policy agenda and pervades the discourse of the planning community on the value of historical city centres. Unfortunately, there seems to be, until today, no proposal in scholarly literature of any unified conceptual framework or any tools to make identity operational. ‘Tourism’ takes advantage of this process, by seeking the qualities of the place, its authenticity and its perceived uniqueness that is grounded on the physical features as well as on the presence of local communities – their way of living and investing in the place. The interdependence between identity as perceived by tourists (external observer) and the identity of the residents rooted in the relationship with the place (in-group) are key to addressing the identity of historic urban areas. These issues are addressed in the context of the growing attractiveness of Lisbon, Portugal, using a historic neighbourhood as a case study. The findings, which are on a set of interviews with different groups of users, showed the points of convergence and divergence between the different groups’ views of the neighbourhood’s identity. This actor-oriented approach is pivotal to understanding the process and to produce knowledge for informed action.

As augmented reality (AR) is becoming technologically possible and publicly available through mobile smartphone and tablet devices, there has been relatively little empirical research studying how people are utilizing mobile AR technologies and forming social practices around mobile AR. This study looks at how mobile AR can potentially mediate the everyday practices of urban life. Through qualitative interviews with users of Layar, a mobile AR browser, we found several emerging uses. First, users are creating content on Layar in ways that communicate about and through place, which shapes their relationship and interpretations of places around them. Second, we found a growing segment of users creating augmented content that historicizes and challenges the meanings of place, while inserting their own narratives of place. Studying emerging uses of AR deepens our understanding of how emerging media may complicate practices, experiences, and relationships in the spatial landscape.

A recent approach to place development is to construct integrated systems for managing cultural and identity resources so that they can be enjoyed through ‘experiential itineraries’. These itineraries are designed on the basis of a survey of existing heritage, with a view to support creative industries or to help develop new ones. Visitor experience of a place can be further enhanced and virtualised using smart technologies. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the studies on experiential itineraries. The studies are rooted in the disciplines of psychology and economy, and, more recently, in disciplines that study places. The author proposes an analysis and design software tool for identification and enhancement of cultural and identity resources. The tool is a dynamic and interactive platform for complex and sensitive management of qualitative data of a place. It is conceived as a single platform with different entry points, both private and public, for local authorities, professionals and citizens. The paper concludes with a brief presentation of case studies carried out in the historical centres of Palestrina and Gaeta in Italy, both characterised by low-impact tourism. The main objective of these studies was to achieve smart experiential knowledge of a place allowing sustainable enjoyment of its resources.

Through a case study based in Bristol, this article explores how the law of place' has transformed multiple heterogeneous city centre spaces into a single homogeneous and commodified privately owned retail site. Drawing on de Certeau, Lefebvre, and humanistic geographers including Tuan, the article explores how law facilitates spatial and temporal enclosure through conventional understandings of private property, relying on techniques of masterplanning, compulsory purchase, and stopping up highways. It suggests that the law of place draws on binary spatial and conceptual distinctions to apparently separate places from spaces, applying different legal rules either side of an often invisible boundary line. The article questions this legally facilitated spatial and conceptual enclosure, particularly as it restricts spatial practices within the public realm. It concludes by rejecting an urban 'right to roam' as insufficiently transformative, calling for a broader interpretation of Lefebvre 's 'right to the