Concepts

• Places can be socially constructed. Places are a product of a set of social processes e.g.

  Trafalgar square built to commemorate the battle of Trafalgar so seen as place of 'empire' +

  'colonialism'.
• Place = Location + Meaning + Nexus of Connectivity
• Place is shaped by exogenous factors e.g. shifting flows of people (migrants, workers), resources (raw materials), money (investment from business outside of area, ideas (urban planners, architects, businesses, artists bring ideas).
• Place is shaped by endogenous factors e.g. topography (height of land, relief e.g hills, mountains ), physical geography (drainage, floodplain, soil type, valley), land use (settlement, industrial, commercial, agricultural built environment (age & type of buildings), infrastructure (road & rail networks, waterways, airports), demographic (age structure, ethnicity ), economics (sector).
• Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and/or expressions that make a person.
• Sense of place is the emotional meanings a place has, either to individuals or groups. This is developed through our experinces in places.
• Homogenized places - places becoming identical to other places through globalisation.
• Clone towns - high streets with a high proportion of chain stores.
• Glocalisation - TNCs adapt their products to suit local tastes and preferences. E.g. McDonalds changes their menu in Canada to serve Poutine
• Belonging is the extent to which you feel you belong and feeling part of a community depends on age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economic status, religion, and level of education.
• An insider is someone who is familiar with a place and who feels welcome there, they feel like they belong there.
• An outsider is someone who feels unwelcome or excluded from a place, they don't feel like they belong there. It could be a place you have never visited or you live in a place but you feel you don't belong.
• Positionality is when different people experience places in different ways. It refers to factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, age. Experiences of place are based on the feeling of belonging or alienation.
• An experienced place is somewhere you have spent time in.
• A media place is somewhere you have only read about, seen on TV, or on the internet. The media always gives us a limited and sometimes misleading view of places.
• Near place


  A place that is geographically close to where a person lives.
• Far place


  A place that is geographically distant from where a person lives.
• Give 3 examples of external forces driving change in places

  • Government policies
  • Decisions of transnational corporations
  • Impacts of international or global institutions
• What is representation of a place?


  How individuals or organisations portray places they know about to others.
• Forms of representing places

  • Quantitative - statistics, data, graphs, charts
  • Qualitative - art, poetry, music, photographs
• What are the positives and negatives of Statistics?


  They are objective data that can give you quantitative information about places, such as the economic and demographic of a place.

  However, they don't tell you about the sense of place, such as people's lived experiences or opinions of the place.
• What are the positives and negatives of Maps?


  They ca show quantitative and qualitative data about places, as well as showing the change in a place's characteristics from past to present. For example, the growth in transport and residency.

  However, maps can be misleading as the creator is subjective to what they include in the map, meaning some good/bad parts can be left out.
• What are the positives and negatives of Films, Photography and Art?


  They can show what a place looks like, giving a sense of character to a place.

  However, these only represent the creator's personal opinion of the place, meaning it could be biased giving the viewer a perspective of a media place.
• What are the positives and negatives of Advertising?


  Advertisement can show multiple dimensions of a place, meaning lots of information is complied into one source. A place's attractions add to their character.

  However, advertisement is often a one-sided, biased view, ignoring the negatives of an area. Some areas are not tourist/business based so less advertisement is needed there.
• Gentrification


  The process of renovation and improvement of housing to suit a middle class audience, usually leading to higher house prices.
• What can gentrification cause?


  Insiders to feel like outsiders over time as entire districts change and adapt to suit a different audience.
• What is Rebranding?


  The process by which forces of change aim to adapt the place meaning of a location, often to encourage tourism by promoting the endogenous/exogenous characteristics of a place, or to overcome negative connotations.