Changing places extended

• Changing places is a different type of unit to others you will study. There are concepts and knowledge to learn, but less than in other units. Changing places is based around people and is more conceptual and contextual
• You will study at least one local place where you live or an area or have conducted fieldwork. You will also need a distant place which has ideas of local, regional, national and international connections. These two places should form case studies
• Place

  A location which has different meanings to various people
• Locale


  Locations in a place that are associated with everyday activities
• Sense of place


  The subjective emotional attachment to a place which gives it meaning
• Placelessness


  A place is not unique
• Attachment

  A feeling binding one subject with another, grows stronger over time as you have more experiences in a place
• Topophilia


  The love of a place and having a strong attachment to it
• Topophobia

  The dislike of a place
• Types of places

  • Near places
  • Far places
  • Experienced places
  • Media places
• Genius loci


  The spirit of a place, suggesting that every place has a unique spirit or atmosphere
• Place character


  • The specific qualities, attributes or features of a location that make it unique, affected by endogenous and exogenous factors
• Endogenous factors


  • Land use
  • Topography
  • Physical geography
  • Infrastructure
  • Demographic characteristics
  • Built environment
  • Location
  • Economic characteristics
• Exogenous factors


  • People
  • Money and investment
  • Resources
  • Ideas
• Over time, endogenous factors will be shaped by the changing flows of exogenous factors
• The influx of people as an exogenous factor during the 2016 Olympics will have caused the city to have become busier, leading to a short-term impact on sense of place
• In the long-term, the investment and movements to bulldoze some areas of the Favela's will have changed the economic and social characteristics of the city. The built environment is affected by the new stadiums that were built
• Insider


  People who feel at home within a place, with characteristics like being born there, holding citizenship, fluent in local language and conforming with social norms
• Outsider


  The opposite of an insider, people who do not belong to the main ethnic group of a community and may feel like outsiders
• All over the world, including the UK, there is a pattern whereby ethnic groups cluster in certain areas, potentially because people feel more comfortable around those similar to themselves
• Unfamiliar street


  • May not be familiar to them
• Finding particular foods


  • May be hard to find which they had in their country of origin
• Architecture of buildings and vehicles

  • May look different from what they are used to
• Feelings of unfamiliarity


  May change in the long-term
• Insiders


  As the family get used to living in that place and integrate into society, they can feel like insiders
• Unique sense of place


  The children of an immigrant family will have a different experience of place to their parents
• Ethnic groups cluster in certain areas, potentially because people feel more at home surrounded by other people sharing the same ethnicity
• Clustering of ethnic groups

  The area will adapt towards that culture over time, which may attract more people from that ethnicity to move there
• City lab maps show where different ethnicities tend to cluster in London
• Large influxes of immigrants into an area


  Can change the characteristics of a place
• High street changing

  Shops and restaurants adapt over time to cater for new cultures, which can make the original residents begin to feel like outsiders as their surroundings become unfamiliar
• Some people may embrace multiculturalism and the changes that occur as a result of immigration and like the diversity of their high street
• Diversity makes some places appealing e.g. Chinatown attracts large numbers of tourists each year
• Gentrification


  The process of renovation and improvement of housing to suit a middle class audience, usually leading to higher house prices
• Gentrification


  Can cause insiders to feel like outsiders over time as entire districts change and adapt to suit a different audience
• Large scale regeneration projects


  Can lead to changes in place character and cause the original population to feel like outsiders
• The area of Stratford, previously a deindustrialised area contaminated with waste and full of derelict industrial buildings, has undergone major regeneration for the 2012 Olympic games and is now called East Village, a mixture of low cost and private housing
• One of the traveller camp sites in Stratford was regenerated into a broadcasting booth
• The other

  People who are unfamiliar or different to the self
• Conflict and social tensions can exist when people who do not have the same identity (the qualities, beliefs and attachments) as other people they meet