The Power of Place Essay

What causes people’s behaviors to change over time? Is it the society shifting as a whole or it is the little things that gradually affects humans? Each generation has its own special traits, and these traits are depending on the surrounding environment-immediate context. The immediate context is words or behaviors that people are using present day have their meanings, which connects to the surrounding environment. There is a time period that everyone believes that he or she is the best, which brings up the idea of self-centered. In An Army of One: Me, the author Jean Twenge, compares situations under the idea of ‘self-esteem” and the society is over-popularized the idea of “me”. This social problem causes the unbalanced understanding of normal tasks and over trended to individualism and self-centered. However, this social phenomenon does not appear suddenly; instead, it depends on people’s living conditions and the surrounding environment, in other words, which it the immediate context. In The Power of Context, the author Malcolm Gladwell, introduces people were living in a negative environment that full of crime and bad behaviors, which results people’s actions are also changing with the surrounding context. However, there are also little things that exist in the surrounding environment that influences human behaviors; as a result, people are gradually changing the environment into a positive way. During this process, people become more selfless and serve to the society.

* Environment: The environment that initially shapes our development is our home. As we mature, the locations in which we interact will shape our development.

Our environments help us create character and personality. We choose whether to live in the life in which is made and shaped for us or use that life to create a better you. We hold our own future in our hands. We can make them bad or good. We can make them to benefit or break us, but either way we control how we let it shape our future. Don’t let your environment write you end. Only let it start your beginning and enhance your future. We are what we choose to

Humans could look at the same unknown object and come up with thousands upon thousands of different ideas of what it is. Our human nature is said to be impacted by the place we are engulfed in. In the essay “A Literature of Place” by Barry Lopez, he goes on to structure his arguments by stating the main point and then elaborating. The points that Lopez make connect to that of Jack London’s character and story in “To Build a Fire.”

Place identity is an essential concept that will be propagated this essay, therein lies its definition from environmental psychology which proposes that identities are formed in relation to surrounding environments. This concept allows us to most importantly understand why the use of physical space is essential to accentuate the idea of inclusion. The term introduced by environmental and social psychologists Proshansky, Fabian, and Kaminoff, argues that the term is a sub-structure of a person’s self-identity, consisting of knowledge and feelings developed through everyday experiences with its physical spaces. A sense of place identity derives from the multiple ways where the place functions to provide belonging, form meanings, forge attachments,

For example, Lopez’s imagination was shaped by the abnormal nature of water in a drought-stricken California valley, the sound of wind rustling the leaves of eucalyptus trees, the tilled earth of crop fields, the beautiful sunsets over alfalfa fields, the smell of flowers near the orchard, and the aftermath of a Pacific storm ravaging a coastal beach. He then writes that it’s important to “become intimate” with a place, meaning that instead of simply observing your surroundings and watching the world go by, you should find a special place in your heart for a certain area that’s special to you in some way. He’s essentially saying that your should take this place into your very being on a spiritual level. Finally, Lopez states that he and many others wonder why people have become so anxious over undeveloped land. The answer is simple. These places hold a special place in their hearts, and they don’t want to see them go. “It may be more important now to enter into an ethical and reciprocal relationship with everything around us than to continue to work toward the sort of control of the physical world that, until recently, we aspired to, (A Literature of Place)” says Lopez. He ends his writing by saying this; “We keep each other alive with our stories. We need to share them, as much as we need to share food. We also require for our health the presence of good

“A great public space cannot be measured by its physical attributes alone; it must also serve people as a vital community resource in which function always trumps form. When people of all ages, abilities, and socio-economic backgrounds can not only access and enjoy a place, but also play a key role in its identity, creation, and maintenance, that is when we see genuine Placemaking in action.” (Project for Public Spaces,

Physical space can inform researchers on how people interact with that space, and influence social behavior. Applied anthropologists have a very important tool in their practitioner’s toolkit that allows them to disseminate behavior, actions, and help create spaces that will meet the needs of the population using ethnography. Ethnography allows practitioners to use their observational skills to improve the design of a product, landscape, environment, or assist with an infrastructural design based on the needs of the individuals that will access such facilities (Rijsberman 2012). To do so, it is extremely important to know the impact of physical surroundings and environmental behavior and understand that environments have a strong influence on people’s interaction with the physical landscape.

In geography, place is used to describe an environment where people are able to interact and make sense of. Lester and his associates (2016) infer that place is used to define human interaction “with nature and among themselves; where there are tensions and where there is peace; where people are rich and where they are poor” (p.32). Cresswell (2008) defines place as combination of a location and meaning. Simply put, place is a space that we give meaning to. It is an empty meaningless physical space that one can take and mold it to their liking giving it meaning and filling it with things that truly describes themselves.

In The Phenomenon of Place, Christian Norberg-Schulz begins by describing that our everyday world consists of concrete “phenomena” and he goes into detail on how a concrete term for the environment is “place.” He uses the poem “A winter Evening” by George Trakl as an example to show how everyday words are used to create a sense of place. As I was reading, one quote that I found curious was, “When man dwells, he is simultaneously located in space and exposed to a certain environmental character......But he also has to identify himself with the environment, that is, he has to know how he is in a certain place.” In the quote, he points out the importance of a phenomenon such as the feeling that one has when they experience a place and find out

The interaction between the place and person influences the person’s sense of well being (In Hussenkus Kearns, 1993). Unlike space, the place also provides security and comfort. The space is transformed into a place when the person experiences and attaches value to it. (Tuan). Typical children, who have more control over their built environment, find a different way to personalize their space and create a place for them. However, Julia’ has very little control over the built environment around her. As a result, Julia’s has no opportunities to create a place for her in the school environment. Currently, Julia sits at a large table along with other children. Her space at the table lacks any personalization or signs of connection. Her relationship to her classroom space is directed by the teacher and occupational demands. A personal connection to her space at the table will give Julia a sense of place, security, and connectedness. Therefore, to provide the sense of place, Julia’s chair will be labeled using a name tag. Also, the back of the chair will be decorated with Disney stickers. Her space at the table will also label using a name tag and a sticker of her choice.

When I was 15 years old, I packed up my life in New York City, said goodbye to my friends and family and moved to a small town in the middle of Connecticut. For three years, I went to a boarding school called Choate Rosemary Hall in a suburb of New Haven. I moved out of the City, where I had grown up and filled with memories, to a small campus on a grassy hill in the middle of a forest. While I had moved houses many times before, I had always stayed in NYC, a place I knew well. This change was drastic and jarring, and as such when reading Tuan’s theories space and place and experiential perspective I find that my experiences of memories of the school line up well with Tuan’s ideas.

Their attitudes are shaped by various different factors. Some of the factors include Age, both economic and social status, their ethnic origin, the familiarity of the place or residence, whether rural or urban. All this factors are significant when determining environmental relationships. Journeys are cconsidered as the midwives of thoughts that people tend to have. Moreover, places always pose as being conducive to the existing internal conversations unlike moving ships, trains or planes. A correlation exists between the things we have ability to see and the thoughts we develop in our minds. It is because large thoughts may require larger views while new thoughts require new places. Therefore, the introspective reflection that are liable to stall appear to be helped along by the flowing of the

It is not difficult to assess the degree to which an individual is affected by the environment in which he lives. We know that climatic and social surroundings are no less influential. We know also that a person is born with the basic characteristics which are going to shape his personality and eventually his destiny. We can safely say that the interactions of both heredity and environment produce the individual. It would be interesting to analyse the effects of environment on the personality and activities of the individual.

The way we live our life touches the comfort of our immediate and external environment. Immediate environment in this context are the people we are living together with in our various homes and neighborhood (i.e. Siblings, spouse, parents and children).External environment are our offices, social gatherings, churches, mosques etc.