Cape Cod: Exploring a Sense of Place

 

What do we mean by “sense of place”?  The phrase is widely used, a buzzword for architects, city planners, landscape painters, even real estate agents.  Definitions of the phrase are hard to pin down. Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan speaks of topophilia, “the affective bond between people, place, and setting.”  J. B. Jackson says “a sense of place is something that we ourselves create in the course of time.” Sense of place, then, is something created and something that takes time to develop. As we live in a place and develop memories, we come to feel connected to it. It is logical that a newcomer cannot know a place in the way someone who has lived her whole life in it does. It takes time to build a relationship with a place just as it does to build relationships with people.

 

Yet, as sociologist David Hummon points out, sense of place also includes a personal, subjective, and even emotional response to a particular setting. Some places are simply boring. Some are like chain restaurants and shopping malls—indistinguishable from dozens like them in other locales. Some settings may even make us feel ill at ease. Others places are inviting and draw us in. We feel “at home” in them. Something about them makes us want to linger, to explore, to return again and again. It might be the physical landscape, the quality of light, or the shape of the public spaces. History also contributes to what makes a place unique, as do the ways artists and writers have responded to it. 

 

"Space" is an abstraction, a blank slate, a spot on a map. It is "geography viewed from a distance. . . calmly waiting to have meaning assigned to it."  Place, on the other hand, is imbued with meaning. E.V. Walters points out, "A place is seen, heard, smelled, imagined, loved, hated, feared, revered, enjoyed, or avoided." The input of our senses—the look, smells, sounds, even the tastes of regional foods all add to how we feel about a place. 

 

Cape Cod is an area with a very strong sense of place.  This study will explore some of the elements that help to create a sense of place there.