Sense of Place and Landscape

This section was written for a grant some time ago and provies a foundation for our current research agenda. This should be viewed as a preliminary discussions and far from final.

Sense of Place

A sense of place is caught up in a landscape, be it natural or urban. Place has the ability to bring an emotional response from an individual. Sense of place is linked to meaning and permanence (McLean & Jensen, 2004a). The meanings of sense of place are multiple and dependent upon the researcher and discipline. Cheng, et al. (2003) state “Places have a way of claiming people. When they claim very diverse kinds of people, then those people must eventually learn to live with each other; they must learn to inhabit their place together . . .” (p. 119). Jackson (1994) argues that, “we recognize that certain localities have an attraction which gives us a certain indefinable sense of well-being and which we want to return to, time and again. (pp. 157–158) MacDonald (2002), speaking of the Brooklyn Parkways suggest, “They stand out as exceptional public spaces within an otherwise undistinguished urban street fabric because of the forest of trees they contain along their combined eight-mile length and the continuous open-space amenities they provide for the neighbourhoods they pass through” (p. 117).

Sense of place is a binding agent for community members. While each see place differently, there remains a commonality that cements community cohesion. Vaux and Olmsted saw the value of parkways and linked them to the evolution of community (Brooklyn Park Commission, 1868, pp 178-198) (as reported in MacDonald, 2002). Jiven & Larkin (2003) report, “Group identity is thus closely linked with the form and history of place, creating a sense of place or genius loci. . .” (p. 69).

Link to Landscape Preference

The urban forest is a landscape. Landscape preferences have long been studied by landscape architects and urban planners. Landscape preference is inexorably linked to sense of place and place meaning whether it be in an urban or natural environment. The principles and especially research methodology applied in one can be adapted to fit the other. Environmental researchers, however, have been less than enthusiastic about making the leap from the natural environment to the urban environment. There are some notable exceptions (Norwegians here).

Jackson (1980, p. 16) and reported in Stokowski (2002) stated, “This is how we should think of landscapes: not merely how they look, how they conform to an esthetic ideal, but how they satisfy elemental needs.… A landscape should establish bonds between people, the bond of language, of manners, of … work and leisure, and above all a landscape should contain the kind of spatial organizations which foster such experiences and relationships…. “Dakin (2003) states, “People are not mere viewers of landscape: they participate in a way that influences their understanding” (p. 190).

History of Measures

What we really don’t understand is how the urban forest contributes to an urban resident’s sense of place. Urban areas have been managed largely in their ability to contribute to the economic well-being of the community. In many cases the economic well-being did not take into account biophysical well-being, environmental well-being, or community social well-being. If none of these were taken into account it is only a short leap to suggest that the urban forest received no greater consideration. Williams and Stewart (1998) believe, “that by putting the human bond with nature in the foreground, rather than treating it as an interesting but insignificant feature of the background for . . . planning, managers can begin to give the relationship between people and the land the careful, systematic attention it requires and deserves” (p. 22).

The preponderance of research on sense of place has been empirical. Shanahan, et al. (1999) argue, “a fundamental univariate approach to measuring . . . may not suffice to describe the complexity of . . . belief” (p. 406). The move towards more qualitative approaches to the measurement perception and belief has been growing over the last 20 years and especially in the last 10 years. The development of more refined qualitative approaches, and the linking of qualitative and empirical research methodologies have refined researchers abilities to measure Shanahan’s complexity of belief.

This research, then, will focus on (1) objective qualities of the urban forest, and simultaneously (2) the social construction of place as it relates to the urban forest. The last portion of Stokowski’s (2002) paper may state it best when she says, “‘Ah,’ … ‘my mountains!’ That sentiment is not unusual. We each have attachments to certain physical qualities of natural, historic and cultural places. But until we recognize that we can and do make ‘my mountains’ into ‘our mountains’ through shared language, stories, myths, images, and behavior, we will not enjoy scholarly or practical senses of place that sustain our quests to be more closely connected with each other and with all our desired environments” (p. 380-381).