INTEREST in place and in the meaning of place is universal.
The academic discipline that studies place is geography.
Geographers have approached the study of place from two
main perspectives: place as location, a unit within a hierarchy of
units in space; and place as a unique artifact. Thus we have a
growing literature on "central-place" theory on the one hand, and
on the other a small body of work devoted to depicting the unique
character of individual places, mostly towns and cities. Where we
gain systematic knowledge it is highly abstract and remote from
experience; where we gain complex understanding it is restricted
to particular localities. People's largely unformulated desire to
know more about place remains not entirely assuaged by the offerings
of specialists. In belles-lettres we find indeed eloquent
evocations of place, but these evocations add up to a long gallery
of individual portraits with no hint as to how they might be related.
Is it possible to stay close to experience in the study of place
and yet retain the philosophical ideal of systematic knowledge?
The answer is yes, and the key to such an approach lies in the
nature of experience.
Theories of Identity and the Built Environment