CHANGING PLACES

complete

Explain what a place is (include. location, sense of place and locale)

• location is a physical point where a place is whereas place is a location which has different meanings to certain people

• place has an emotional meaning and relationship with people

• sense of place is the subjective emotional attachment a person has to the place (the feeling you have towards that place

• a locale is is a locations in a pace that is associated with everyday activities (eg work, sports ground, school etc) people are likely to show specific behavioural traits at a certain locale to conform with social sterotypes

What is placelessness?

suggests that a place is not unique. for example most uk high streets have costa coffee, gregs, tesco etc (chain shops), which are locales that structure social interactions and help develop sense of place. means people may interact with one place the same as another. - clone town

explain attachment to place (include Topophilia and topophobia)

• as people have experiences in a place they may gain an attachment, of as they spend more time there. experiences can have different intensity (greater intensity = more depthful attachment)

• more experiences creates a deeper attachment. yu-fu tuan suggests that attachment to a place grows stronger over time.

• TOPOPHILIA = the love of a place with a strong attachment

• TOPOPHOBIA = the dislike of a place

  • topophobia may occur with an attachment, just the attachment will be negative

What are the 4 main types of place?

• near places - subjective to each individual, places that are close to us. there is also a subjective idea of what ‘close’ means (eg. a place may be physically close but a homesick person may feel it is far from them)

• far places - subjective to each individual, place that is distant (both near and far have an emotional element

• experienced places - places that a person has actually visited, there may or may not be an emotional attachment

• media places - places we have not visited but may learn about through the media, we. may have an attachment to a media place despite not experiencing it in person

What is an example of a media place?

NEW YORK
this may be a media place for many people based on it’s display in the media in the news, films, music etc.

• Friends filmed in mid 90s and early 2000s (watched by over 52.5 million people), depicts the city as a nice place, filled with coffee shops and famous people

• In alicia keys song ‘empire state of mind’ it is depicted as a ‘concrete jungle’

• the twin towers 9/11 2001, broadcasted around the world in the news as america’s worst terrorist attack.

• empire state building, statue of liberty and times square is iconic imagery in the media.

what is the genuis loci?

the spirit of a place, unique to that specific place based on everything it is made up of now and in the past

what is place character?

• Related to specific qualities, attributes or features of a locations making it unique.

• This is influenced by exogenous and endogenous factors

What are endogenous factors and some examples of them?

factors that influence the character of a place which originate from within the place (are local):

• land use (urban, rural, agricultural etc)

• topography (the relief of the land)

• physical geography (natural physical features of the land (eg rivers)

• infrastructure (built services that enhance or are essential to living - eg roads, water supplies, parks, schools)

• demographic characteristics

• architecture (the built environment)

• location

• economy

What are exogenous factors and some examples of them?

factors that influence the character of a place which originate from outside the place and provide links and relationships (can be referred to as flows):

• people - impact of tourism, workers, migrants, refugees, visitors (eg Germany has around 1.4 million asylum seekers who integrate into their society, though also creating disputes, and inevitably changing the character of the place)

• money and investment - trade deals, tax, new business or movement of business within the area - TNCs and MNCs.

• resources - availability of raw materials, products, food, water and energy (food security may severely impact the character of the place)

• ideas - entrepreneurs may move to an area bringing new business.

these factors or flows, may over time influence endogenous factors. eg rio de janeiro was changed by the 2016 olympics as favelas were bulldozed and facilities were built, changing the social and economic characteristics

What are the two main perspectives of place?

insider and outsider

dependent on a person’s feelings of belonging towards the place determined by many factors and changeable over time

What is an insider perspective?

people that feel at home within a place and may have some of the following characteristics =

• born in the place

• citizenship in the place

• fluency in the local language

• conforming to the social norms/common behavioural traits of the place

What is an outsider perspective?

opposite to insiders, feeling of not belonging to the place. may be due to:

• not belonging to the ethnic group

• not speaking the dialect

• unfamiliar with the architecture and infrastructure

how may sense of place change over time?

outsider - insider = eventually feeling like an insider and integrating with society. groups of people of one ethnicity may cluster for the benefit of feeling an insider perspective and this may influence the character of the place.

insider - outsider =

• large influx of new residents into an area = can change the character of a place - new cultures may be adopted and surroundings can begin to unfamiliar (however some may embrace this multiculturalism, with diversity making some places appealing)

• gentrification = renovation and improvement of housing to suit middle class, leading to higher house prices. areas may change to suit an audience other than the locals (feeling they do not fit with the culture or class) this is a prevalent problem in berlin

• regeneration = large scale regeneration projects lead to changes in place character (demolition, construction, investments and better quality of life) which can alter the demographic of an area

  • eg stratford for the 2012 olympics - an area now called east village was previously a de industrialised area contaminated with waste and full of derelict buildings. now it consists of low cost private housing with a previous iris traveller campsite regenerated into a broadcasting booth

What is gentrification?

when an inner urban areas has become unfashionable and neglected so is upgraded to a higher status

• process of housing improvement

• low income groups may be displaced by more affluent

What are 3 pros and cons of gentrification?

pros

• value of housing in the area increases meaning existing house owners can sell their houses for more

• new business moves into the area to cater for wealthier inhabitants

• crime rates may fall = better housing, less dereliction, less graffiti and vandalism

cons

• increased housing prices means children of house owners cannot afford to live in the area

• original residents may loose businesses they need (eg charity shops and laundrette) due to influx of wealthier residents

• tension between old and new residents for this reason affecting the community

What is regeneration?

strategies to improve an area such as investment of public money or private finance into areas that need improvement

What is the meaning of ‘the other’?

refers to people who are unfamiliar or different to the self

• conflict and social tensions can arise when people have different identities (qualities beliefs and attachments) as other people they meet.

• this can easily lead to prejudice against them seeing them as ‘alien’ and dehumanised

• conflict can also be due to racism or xenophobia (fear in something that is out of place) - most commonly seen in society today as a suspicion towards migrants and foreigners

• this can cause segregation in places

people with an outsider perspective of the place entering may see natives of the area as other too

What can impact reliability of a secondary source of data representing a place?

• the purpose of the data

• origin of the data

• if other sources give similar of different representations

• subjective opinion of who created the source as well as the person interpreting it.

what can be done to increase reliability of sources that represent place?

• collecting more that one source of data that represents the place to have a more holistic perspective

• consider is the source gives neg/pos impression of place

• find context of the source or person that provided it (its provenance)

• comparison to other available sources and when it was made in comparison to them

what is ‘big data’

big in terms of scale (number of responses, variety of data sets, size of populations etc) and takes huge amounts of computational power - huge source of quantitative data

• velocity = often real time information

• volume = not a sample and is a record of a whole data set/population

• digital footprint = eg may be movements on social media , eg posts, tweets etc.

has a large spatial element as everything happened somewhere so can be used to make predictions of populations of an area (eg cost effective allocation of resources, help candidate to win a vote by targeting key voters)

what is the census and how can it be analysed?

a periodic count of the population usually including social economic information (occupations, ages, income)

to make sense of the data responses are organised geographically. gives anonymity to those that completed it and allows wider conclusions to be gained from the population at different spatial scales

chloropleth maps are effective in presenting census data

what is the IMD?

index of multiple deprivation

• published regularly to inform government etc on investments into communities and decision making

• ranks 32,000+ neighbourhoods across the country according to 7 domains (income, employment, education, health, crime, barriers to housing and living environment)

• deciles are produced by ranking all neighbourhoods and dividing them into 10 equal sized groups. decile 1 = most deprived 10% of areas nationally

why should caution be taken when interpreting data of individual neighbourhoods in the IMD?

• ranks are relative, shows how much more deprived one areas is than another but not by how much

• when interpreting maps we are drawn to large areas of colour, a geographically larger areas may have. a smaller population that a geographically smaller area

• describes the neighbourhood over all but not the individuals in the area

• identifies aspects of deprivation but not affluence

How may the IMD consider consider physical distance?

physical distances and location of places is taken as a contributor factor in the IMD. the following is incorporated into the ranking of each neighbourhood…

• road distance to post office

• road distance to primary school

• road distance to general shop or supermarket

• road distance to GP surgery

What were the key findings of the england IMD 2019?

1. 88% of the neighbourhoods that were in the ‘most deprived’ category in 2019 were also the most deprived according to the 2015 data.

2. Middlesbrough, Liverpool, Knowsley, Kingston upon Hull and Manchester are the local authorities with the highest proportions of ‘most deprived’ areas in the UK.

3. Many London Boroughs have seen a reduction in the proportion of their neighbourhoods that are ‘highly deprived’ since 2015.

How had deprivation between 2004-2015 in england varied?

98 neighbourhoods have been ranked amongst 1% most deprived in each update (2004,2007,2010,2015)

these are places where community has experiences poorest quality of life for over a decade

areas most effected by persistent poverty are merseyside and greater manchester

in contrast no neighbourhoods in london were ranked in the lowest 1% in each and every update. The top four places in london where deprivation has fallen significantly are Hackney, Tower hamlets, Greenwhich and newham - which are 4 of the 6 boroughs that hosted the 2012 olympics - a testement to the power of rebranding and

What may act as a source of change in a place?

• councils

• government agencies and policies

• TNCs

• community groups

what is an example of a government agency that caused change in a place?

LONDON DOCKLANDS

The LDDC was set up by the local government in 1981 to regenerate the docklands in east london as they were becoming derelict, after closing down.

What is an example of international forces of change affecting the character of a place?

The international olympics committee (IOC)

• the 2012 olympics led to transformation of stratford, london. Created regeneration, attracted tourism, global interest, economic income

• media representation of the place around the world during the olympics

• before olympics was relatively derelict and mainly for industrial uses - not an attractive area for tourism

• new social and commercial housing (2818) and leisure facilities are still in use

What were some of the downfalls of the IOCs developments in stratford 2012?

• gentrification caused rises in property prices - housing was less affordable for existing residents

• areas around the olympic park are still facing challenges of poverty. eg newham still has one of the highest child poverty rates in london (37%)