Changing places (Not including Eastleigh and Torquay) Flashcards
What is perception of place?
The way in which place is viewed or regarded by people - can be influenced by media representation or personal experience
What is sense of place?
The subjective and emotional attachment people have to a place
Why do perceptions of place matter?
- Places matter - they are political and contested
- Conflict caused by different views
- Views hard to change
- Meaning is social
- Rural places have different meanings for different people
- Investors may see space as a business opportunity due to lower costs
- Urban representations can affect real life decision making
- Photographers produce utopian images
- Science fiction writing may be dystopian
- May affect how people see cities
What is placelessness?
- Suggests a place isn’t unique
- Chain shops
- Loses individuality - harder to create individual memories
What is a near place?
- Close to us
- Subjective
What is a far place?
- Distant
- Emotional meaning
- People may feel far away emotionally even if physically close
What are experienced places?
- We have actually visited
- Creates emotional attachment
What is genius loci?
- Spirit of a place
- Every place has a unique spirit or atmosphere
What are media places?
- Haven’t visited
- Learned about through media representations
- Media sources change sense of place subconsciously
What is an insider?
Perspective of someone who knows a place well and is familiar with its topography and its daily rhythms and events
* Hold citizenship
* Fluent in local language
* Born here
What is an outsider?
Perspective of someone who doesn’t know a place well
* Migrants
* Not accustomed to culture, social norms and dialect
* Feelings of unfamiliarity likely to change in the long term
How will an outsider’s perspective on an area change?
- Influenced by media representations or books/news reports
- Comparisons with other places
- Objective facts as no invested interest in the place
What will an insider’s perspective on a place be based on?
- Sense of place due to everyday experiences
- Stake in community
- Subjective feelings
What is a palimpsest?
Something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form
What are material traces?
Physical tangible additions to the environment and include things such as buildings, signs and statues
What are non-material traces?
Events, performances, or emotions which occur in that place
What are layered connections?
- Place stories have several chapters due to the way place networks and flows have changed over time
- Each historical period has own connections with near/far places
- Over time, “layers” of connections built up - “accumulated history” visible in a place’s cultural landscape
How and why do urban areas change?
- Loss of city centre retail to out of town retail and business parks - businesses relocate to cheaper rural areas, affects local economy
- Decline in heavy industry due to global shift, offshoring or outsourcing - globalisation alters purpose of cities
What is the place character?
Relates to specific qualities, attributes or features of a location that make it unique
What are endogenous factors?
Originate from within the place and are local e.g. land use, topography, physical geography, demography, infrastructure
What are exogenous factors?
Originate from outside a place and provide linkages and relationships to and with other places: Referred to as flows of:
* People (tourists, migrants, refugees, visitors)
* Money and investment (trade, tax, major events)
* Resources
* Ideas
Over time, endogenous factors shaped by changing flows of exogeneous factors
What is gentrification?
Renovation and improvement of housing to suit a middle class audience, leading to higher house prices
Why can gentrification cause feelings of being an “outsider”
- Insiders may be priced out
- Districts can change and adapt to suit a different audience, insiders no longer fit with culture or class
What is a shrinking world?
Thanks to technology, distant places start to feel closer and take less time to reach
What is time-space convergence?
The lived experience of distant places feeling nearer due to the ‘annihilation’ of distance by new transport and communications technologies
How is the character of places being eroded by globalisation, and how much is this to do with the global economy?
Proof - clone towns, placeless places, McDonaldisation
Eroded local cultures, producing identical places (increasing presence of global chains in high streets)
James Kunstler American Novelist talks about “geography of nowhere”, urban sprawl led to community-less cities that are identical - “every place is like no place in particular”
How is Heathrow a “non-place”?
Busiest international airport in Europe
70 shops and 30 restaurants
All chain stores
Lack of identity
All history removed
What does utilitarian mean?
Designed to be useful or practical rather than attractive
Clone town studies
41% of town centres classed as clones by NEF
23% on the verge of this
No more than 36% classified by the think tank as “home-towns” where independent retailers make up 2/3rds of shops
Causes of clone towns
Mass production
Increasingly mobile world
Speeding up of flows
Shrinking of planet
Individualism
Preference for fake copies of more worthy originals
How is globalisation making place more important than ever?
Glocalization - adapting global products to suit local tastes (Mcdonalds)
What is “The rust belt”?
IN USA many heavy manufacturing industries located in North of country
Globalisation and outsourcing of industries to low wage countries declined winters
Entire neighbourhoods abandoned as high paying manufacturing jobs vanished and workers
People moving to sunnier climates in south
How has deindustrialisation affected the sense of place within the UK?
BBC relocated key departments to Salford to change the area to reinvigorate the economy
Northern Powerhouse introduced to turn north economy around
What is the commodification of place?
- All places have an image that depends upon perception
- A place’s brand is the popular image a place has acquired
- Objective aspects (e.g. location) subjective (e.g. safety, atmosphere, level of economic activity)
Why rebrand a place? Social
- Change negative/outdated stereotypes
- Encourage people to move in, live and work in an area
- Tourism
Why rebrand a place? Economic
- To improve job opportunities
- Attract inward investment
Why rebrand a place? Environmental
- Improve quality of built environment
Why rebrand a place? Political
- To raise status of place and differentiate it from others
What is reimaging?
- Dissociates a place from bad pre-existing images
- Attracts new investment, retailing, tourists and residents
What is rebranding?
- Ways in which a place is re-developed and marketed so that it gains a new identity. It can then attract new investment
What are stakeholders? (agents of change)
- Used to summarise the whole range of people involved in, and affected by a process such as rebranding
Who are examples of stakeholders?
- Local governments
- Tourist boards
- Local community groups
- Non profit organisations
How can we rebrand places- Top down
- Renaming (e.g. Windscale nuclear plant (now Sellafield)
- flagship regeneration - Albert Docks, Liverpool One, Tate Gallery
- events - e.g. Olympics
- themes e.g. European capitals of culture or UNESCO World Heritage
- urban greening
How can we rebrand places - bottom up
- architecture, heritage use, retail, art, sport and food
- Endogenous “Plymouth: Britain’s Ocean City
- Crowd sourcing and social media - 2013 “People make Glasgow” campaign
Examples of rebranding strategies - Amsterdam
- 1980s: socio-economic decline, reputation for drugs and prostitutes and failed bid to host Olympic games
- “I Amsterdam” slogan - clear short powerful and memorable, statue
- 10 years on, increased tourism and one of the top 5 European cities based on brand strength and cultural assets
“People make Glasgow” Rebranding Campaign
- Interviewed 40 glasgow leaders from private, public and academic sectors
- Everyone said it was the people
- Distinctive identity for the city
Examples of community groups
- Local resident associations
- Neighbourhood watch
- Local businesses
- Environmental organisations
What is agglomeration?
People move from rural to urban areas because they are attracted to better paid jobs and quality of life
What is suburbanisation?
Urban sprawl causes the city to grow and improved transport links mean people can move further out of the city
What is counter-urbanisation?
People move from large cities to smaller villages and commute into city
What is regeneration?
Redevelopment of urban areas that have become run down
Counter-urbanisation examples
- Housing - originally detached stone built houses with slate/thatch roof, farms - now mainly detached or semis, expensive estates
- Inhabitants change - farmers and primary jobs, people may be priced out, professionals and wealthy families move in
- Transport may decline due to more cars, better roads
- Increased services - more pubs and restaurants
What is the post-industrial city?
- Transformation of a built environment
- Dismantled factories, abandoned warehouses, disappearances of working class neighbourhoods
- Growth of office towers, high rise buildings and refurbished waterfronts
- Cafes and boutiques
What is the broken window theory?
- Criminological theory that visible signs of crime, anti-social behaviour, and civil disorder create an urban environment encouraging further crime and disorder
What is a post-industrial place?
Where traditional manufacturing or mining employment has been replaced by an employment structure focused on services and technology
What is urban regeneration?
Attempt to reverse population decline by improving both the built environment and economy of an area
What have been recent strategies of regeneration in the UK?
- Developing CBDs (covered walkways, pedestrianisation, street furniture etc)
- Government led schemes such as urban development corporations or city challenge schemes
- Redesigning spaces to rebrand previously run-down areas
Why were urban development corporations set up?
- Set up in 1980s to take responsibility for regeneration of inner-city areas with declining demographics and derelict land
What powers were UDC given?
- Planning powers that by-passed local government
- Can compulsorily purchase land without approval of local authority
- Public money to purchase and develop land
What were the issues with UDCs?
- Inadequate new employment
- Locals and local authorities had no involvement
- Too dependent on property speculation
What is gentrification?
When wealthier people move into a run-down area and regenerate it by improving their housing - may be a by product of regeneration, smaller scale
Background of Gentrification
- Private process
- Renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighbourhoods by upper- or middle-income families or individuals
What are the positive impacts of gentrification?
- Housing is improved (double glazing, central heating, inside toilets)
- Value of housing increase in the area allowing residents to sell houses for more money
- New businesses move in, creates jobs
- Crime rates may fall as less derelict buildings
What are the negative impacts of gentrification?
- High demand for housing could cause problems for current residents, landlord could demand more money from tenants or kick them out to sell houses when value is high
- Children of the original homeowners may be unable to afford a property nearby
- Traditional shops e.g. launderettes and charity shops forced to shop down for coffee shops and boutiques
- Tension caused between local people and new residents, quite often forming a social gap
Locale
a setting where everyday life takes place such as an office
Placemaking
how a place can be modelled or viewed
Placelessness
you could be anywhere in the country due to no unique features
Experienced Places
people may have been to this place and know to some extent the everyday goings in a place
Media places
places that are portrayed in a particular way in the press or on social media
Endogenous factors
factors influencing places character from inside a place such as the topography
Exogenous factors
factors external to an area such as governmentally
Agents of change
factors that contribute to a change in place character
