Urban Identity

Abstract

The last decade saw several efforts to conceptualise urban-related identification in the field of Environmental Psychology (Graumann & Schneider, in press). Of special importance is the work on “place-identity” (Proshansky, 1978; Proshansky, Fabian & Kaminoff, 1983), “sense of place” (Tuan, 1980; Buttimer, 1980; Relph, 1976) and “place dependence” (Stokols, 1981). In addition, there are a number of older works out of which the approaches by Fried (1963) and Treinen (1965) have to be mentioned. These perspectives employ a very broad and partly fuzzy concept of “place”. They tend to use this concept in a more narrow sense to mean the house or flat, the neighbourhood with its social network, the work place or other relevant environments. One’s relation to a spatial environment is essentially viewed as resulting from concrete experiences. Thus, the focus is on those places which can be directly experienced by the person and which are subjectively meaningful to her or him. The environment attains its symbolic meaning as a subtrate of social, emotional and action-related conceptions primarily through these concrete relations.

Translated by Helga Dittmar, University of Sussex, England