ABSTRACT
Place attachment (PA) is a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary concept focused at different levels with many definitions. Most view it as both positive and powerful. To humanistic geographers, people’s bonding with meaningful spaces represents a universal connection that fulfills fundamental human needs (Relph, 1976). To community psychologists and sociologists, attachments to one’s town or residential neighborhood, or to particular places in one’s community, are important motivations for people to spend more time outdoors in those places, to meet and talk to one’s neighbors, to share their concerns about local problems and ideas for solutions, and rather than flee, to stay and fight-i.e., participate in efforts both informal and organized-to preserve, protect, or improve the community (Manzo & Perkins, 2006). Those efforts are often in response to some perceived threat to residents’ health, safety, property, and/or quality of life, which may also disrupt the very place attachments that led to residents’ community commitment and engagement (Brown & Perkins, 1992).
