Print PageSense of place studies are common in geography, sociology, psychology and anthropology. Over the years, these investigations have become theoretically informed primarily utilizing humanistic and constructionist perspectives. Given this, most studies have sought rich, deep and contextualized understandings of sense of place, seeing the idea as an integral part of everyday life and life-world. Yet the salience of sense of place is often asserted, being part of the taken-for-granted. But it is not always clear whether sense of place concerns place identity, place attachment or place iconography. Simply put is sense of place an attribute of place or person or the relationship between the two? Population surveys cetainly comment on the attributes of the environment (physical and social) and how these affect and shape health and well-being. mediated by individual and community characteristics. The social environment is specifically important especially with respect to safety, fear and control. The physical environment appears less related. Why is this? These questions will be answered by a critical literature review and presentation of the author's own results.
Results/Conclusions
The relationship between sense of place and health and well-being in urban settings is complex and nuanced. Place certainly matters but the nature and quality of its attributes will affect its influence. In the main, the direct influence of social and physical attributes of place are best seen on level of psychosocial health. There are some indirect relationships between physical health outcomes and sense of place. Original research appears to show that health is impacted by sense of place but that sense of place is less impacted by health status. This assymetric relationship, which points to a directionality of effect, will be examined in relation to the determinants of health and place attachment, drawing on the social indicators literature.
