The view of Manhattan from the Sustainable South Bronx office

Sense of Place

Sense of place is symbolic meaning and importance of a place. Community gardens, cities, and rivers, and are not just geographical locations. People ascribe certain values and meanings to these places through their experience. These meanings may influence the way people behave and care about these places.

Sense of place has two main components:

1. Place Attachment. This is a bond between people and places. If people are attached to their places, they are not likely to move to other places. They may also be more likely to volunteer in environmental restoration programs than people who are not attached to their places.
2. Place Meaning. Place meaning refers to emotional and simbolic meanings that people ascribe to places. The same place may have different meanings for different people. Some people in the Bronx may think that the Bronx is a place of environmental degradation, while other people may think that the Bronx is where people and nature come together, and where there are plentiful opportunities for recreation and education.

Literature

• Chawla, L. (1992). Childhood place attachment. In I. Altman & S. M. Low (Eds.), Place attachment (Vol. 12, pp. 63-86). New York: Plenum Press.
• Orr, D. W. (1992). Ecological literacy: education and the transition to a postmodern world. Albany: State University of New York Press.
• Olwig, K. (1982). Education and the sense of place. In D. E. Cosgrove (Ed.), Geography and the humanities (pp. 38-53): Loughborough University of Technology.
• Sobel, D. (2005). Place-based education: connecting classrooms and communities: The Orion Society.
• Tuan, Y.-F. (1977). Space and place: the perspective of experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.