Place theory offers no explanation of the developmental processes by which place attachment arises.
Drawing on recent findings in human attachment theory, this study offers a developmental model of the
process by which place attachment emerges from a childhood place experience. A pattern of positively
affected experiences of place in childhood are generalised into an unconscious internal working model of
place which manifests subjectively as a long-term positively affected bond to place known as place
attachment. Qualitative analysis of adult remembrance of childhood place experience provides support
for this model and finds important parallels in the developmental processes underpinning place
attachment and human attachment as well as some differences