ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the triad of place interaction broadly. It provides several real-world examples drawing on newspaper stories and other descriptive sources that illustrate specific place interactions. The chapter considers some of the more complex aspects of place interaction, including the complicated matter of how individual interaction triads conjoin to invoke larger-scale place processes over time. In addition to providing a typology of people–people interactions, Lyn Lofland's work is significant because she delineates a typology of people–place interactions, which she says are intimately connected with people–people interactions but in ways not thoroughly understood. Deciphering the specific impulses generating a specific place interaction requires this synergistic way of envisioning whereby the action is pictured as a single dynamic process rather than as some distinct impulses. Much of the time, specific place events incorporate not one triad but a chain of triads whereby a specific situation unfolds via a series of progressive actions.