Stand in the Place Where You Live:

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Stand in the Place Where You Live

• Sense of Place, Values and Perceptions about Land
  Use in Tiverton,
• Rhode Island

Jessica Lerner April 21, 2005
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How do people imagine the landscapes they find
themselves in? How does the land shape the
imaginations of the people who dwell in it?
Barry Lopez
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Some Beginning Questions

• Is the experience of Home directly connected to
  place, or the land?
• How does place shape identity?
• What type and what level of attachment is there
  to place? How does that attachment reveal itself?
• What are the best ways to utilize sense of place
  in a public planning process?

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1.How do people experience sense of place in
Tiverton, and how does it manifest in their
actions, beliefs and behavior, and attitudes
towards development?
2. What implications does this have for planning
becoming place making?
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Sense of Place

• Diverse range of scholars-
• human geographers, planners, educators, nature
  writers, poets, architects
• Not one unifying body of work
• A collective of ideas that together define and
  expand on sense of place

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Sense of PlaceSome models
Gary Snyder

• Bioregional awareness
• Relationship to the land
• Rootedness
• Place-based community
• ecological identity

Scott Russell Sanders
Peter Forbes
Mitchell Thomashow
Wendell Berry
Kent Ryden
Yi-Fu Tuan
Barry Lopez
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What Creates a Sense of Place?

• Series of experiences
• Memory
• Meaning
• Relationship between person and place
• Commitment, Investment, Rootedness
• Sense of Place

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The Placed Person
If you are not yourself placed, then you wander
the world like a sightseer, a collector of
sensationsLocal knowledge is the grounding for
global knowledge. Scott Russell Sanders
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Land Use and Sense of Place

• Developments impact in Tiverton
• Good and bad development
• Displacement
• impacting already existing sense of place
• How do developers use sense of place?
• Using marketing tools that target unconscious
  desires of the public

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Values, Perceptions and Identity

• Values and perceptions about land, environment,
  and surroundings
• How experience and response to land shapes
  identity
• Values and perceptions about land use,
  development and character of place

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Why Tiverton?

• Tiverton on the brink of change, development
  happening rapidly
• Chosen for its rural character, diversity of
  landscape, people and built environment, and
  current development proposals and controversies

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Tiverton, RI
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Tiverton

• Working class and upper-middle class
• Population 15,260, average age 40 (source US
  census bureau)
• Rich environmental and agricultural history
• Diverse neighborhoods
• conservation land, urban/suburban areas
• Ethnically and racially homogenous
• Development is beginning to transform the
  landscape and character of town

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Methods

• Semi-structured in-depth interviews with
  residents
• Oral History Approach
• Narrative
• We are the only creatures who are continually
  telling ourselves stories in order to understand
  just what type of creatures we are. Salman
  Rushdie

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Methods, continued

• Intercept Questions
• Response to images and interactive exercises
• Bioregional quiz, sense of place map
• Word of Mouth, Meetings, Snowballing, cold
  calling
• January-April
• Total 16 hour-and-a-half /two hour interviews
  with residents,28 hours total
• Three interviews with specialists

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The Process

• Taped interviews
• In person and phone
• Repeated listening, coding major and minor themes
  
• narrative analysis
• Spot transcribing
• member checking

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The Questions

• Sense of Place and personal history
• Development, social/political issues, impact of
  local action

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Response to Development Proposals

• For and against large-scale retail, majority
  against
• Geographically and socially divided-
• North and South Tiverton
• Most felt development would divide the town more
• For some, developmentprogress
• When asked, almost all who were for development
  preferred a town center or alternate proposal to
  large scale retail
• Almost none felt large scale retail would serve
  the towns needs.

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I think it will lose itssmall-town feel. A
community thats manageable, into one that is
kind of faceless, that looks like, Swanseaor
SeekonkIt will look like anyplace USA. It wont
be our Tiverton that has its own fingerprint. It
will not have this intimacy, this New England
intimacy thats ours. I mean, were a small
community! We only have 15,000 people here. That
will change.

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On North and South Tiverton

There is a divide, to my knowledge, from what I
hearI dont know why, people seem to look down
on this end of the townits the business end,
its the dirty end of townmost people in the
south end of Tiverton dont come here for their
needs Most of us who are in the lower income
group are saying they dont want it because they
dont need jobs, theyve got their professions,
they dont need tax relief, where the other
people are saying well, I moved here because I
wanted to move to a rural areathats not what I
want here. Youve got that little bit of
resentment between the two groups. Youve still
got friction between the north and south end of
Tiverton.

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• While not all supported conservation or were
  against development, almost everyone acknowledged
  an attachment to place and a desire to preserve
  Tivertons unique characteristics.

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1.How do people experience sense of place in
Tiverton, and how does it manifest in their
actions, beliefs and behavior, and attitudes
towards developement?
2. What implications does this have for planning
becoming place making?
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Themes and Findings

• 1. Attachment and Challenge
• How does going through a process of fighting for
  a place change attachment to that place, create
  or transform sense of place?

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Attachment and Challenge

• Disruption or challenge to place
• Catalyst to take action
• Further involvement, commitment
• Responsibility, pride, empowerment, ownership
• Solidifies and strengthens attachment, sense of
  place
• Place further influences identity and decisions,
  perceived value increases

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I think you have to live there long enough to
become attached to the land. I have a very strong
emotional attachment to a place. It comes from
being there, walking the land late at night and
hearing the crickets, seeing things growtrees
that are there long before you got there and will
be there after you leaveconnections that to me
are extremely importantThats of huge value to
me, a closeness to the land- I still have strong
memories of the places I livedgoing from that
free roaming as an 11-12 year old to a tract
subdivision, where they had hundreds of houses
they were building- it was a shock, I hated it, I
detested it. So to live somewhere where you have
some connection to the natural world is very
importantthose experiences hung in my
consciousness.

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Themes and Findings

• 2. Inauthentic Representation
• How do people respond to attempts by developers
  to create an authentic New England building in
  their town?

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If you drive around Tiverton now, all the pretty
things that you seeand all the not so pretty
architecture and even some of the ugly
architecture is all real! But what you got there,
you have architecture thats completely fake. And
yet theyre saying it mimics the character of the
town. So what are they saying, the town is fake?
The logic there is not very good.

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Theyre using us. Theyre telling us its
something its not gonna be. It suits their
purpose. To call it a town center, and in no way
shape or form does it resemble a town center.
Its like W standing on the aircraft carrier I
dont think so! If you try to mimic the original
architecture its a fake. The whole thing is a
fake! Its fake architecture on a false premise
that this is somehow needed and integral to the
community.

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Inauthentic Representation

• How does this impact sense of place?
• Does it preserve character? Offset negative
  impact?
• Strong investment in results of development
• Need to represent values, aspects of self
• Could disconnection occur?
• Does this create a transient person with few
  roots and no place-based identity?

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Strip Mall Disguised as New England Village
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Themes and Findings

• 3. Self Expression
• Place a missing element in peoples verbal
  expression
• Difficulty articulating what it is about place
  that means something to them
• New to sense of place literature

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Self-Expression

• Difficult to access thoughts and feelings about
  place
• Obstacle to place-making and sense of place
• Obstacle to environmental communication
• Possible to access under certain circumstances
• Time, extended narrative, personal history

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Its a place where youre comfortable. Home is
where my family, my possessions are, where I can
relax and enjoy myself Its a place where you
can relax and enjoy the things you enjoy doing.
Home is where family is, where friends are. Its
as I said, its the people, the familiar, you
know? Thats home.

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Gee, I dont know. Its a specialjust, the fauna
that grows in the area, you know, the plants and
things, itsI dont really know how to describe
it. Its the beaches, its the woods, its the
older sections of town where you see some of
these larger farm houses like Little Compton and
thatIve always loved the countrysidebut its
just beautiful. Right by the yards with all the
crocus coming up in the lawn andits just, I
dont know how to describe it. Its home!

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New Questions

• How to promote a sense of place awareness, and
  create place makers
• What are some of the alternatives for land use
  and alternative sources of revenue for the town
  besides large-scale retail development and
  residential development?

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RecommendationsCreating Place Makers

• Assemble a group of town visionaries
• Discuss the future at town planning meetings
• Buildout scenarios, alternatives to development,
  etc.
• Define unique characteristics and incorporate
  into Comprehensive Community Plan
• Make drafts of plan available to public for
  comments
• Overarching vision/mission statement for land use
• Revise zoning, site reviews, design reviews

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RecommendationsCreating Place Makers-
continued

• Interactive design standards and planning
  workshops
• Sense of Place mapping exercises
• Educational activities sponsored by Tiverton Land
  Trust, Conservation Commission
• Utilizing historical and ecological resources for
  place-based education
• Extended outreach for place-based activities to
  uninvolved community members all over Tiverton,
  especially North Tiverton

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Alternatives for land useSuggestions from
residents

• Creating a Town Center
• Ideas for revenue
• Seek out major investors
• Lodging, Restaurants
• Revitalization of waterfront shops (Main road)
• Revitalization of maritime activity, events,
  fairs
• Birding Industry
• Charging or creating a market for windsurfers
• Utilizing Industrial Park
• Artist Colony, related businesses

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Proposed Future Studies

• Sense of place study in other communities,
  geographical regions
• Urban, Suburban Areas, diverse populations
• Comparative studies
• Exploration of questions resulting from findings
• Longitudinal study of Tiverton
• Follow-up study of implemented recommendations,
  outcome
• Most successful

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In Conclusion

• People tend to have a strong sense of place in
  Tiverton
• Place is often a missing element in their
  expression
• How can we continue to facilitate residents
  tapping into their values and sense of place?
• There is a strong response to the physical
  environment including the built environment
• Could impact level of commitment or attachment
• People are motivated to take action in order to
  preserve their sense of place
• This may mean that they have a significant impact
  on the future of development in Tiverton

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Acknowledgments

• Dr. Christina Zarcadoolas
• Dr. Paul Buhle
• Dr. Katherine Brown, SCLT
• Patti Caton and Betsy Barlow
• Laura Epke, Barbara Martin, Trish Sylvester
• The Town of Tiverton
• John Snook, Peter Forbes, and Mark London
• Scholars and advocates
• CES
• Soup Helpers
• Family and Friends