An Objective and Subjective Approach to Measuring Sense of Place

Take a moment and think of the place in which you find yourself right now. No matter the location, there are seemingly infinite ways to develop a connection to a particular place. For example, you may depend on your surroundings to provide basic needs, or maybe the connection developed through an emotional attachment. However the connection is formed, “sense of place” drives our level of concern, especially relating to a wide range of environmental issues.

Measuring sense of place­ could reveal valuable insight into a person’s relationship to their surroundings and level of environmental concern. However, how does one quantify something that is both complex and contextual? Researcher Asim Zia from the University of Vermont and his team of colleagues set out to answer that question. Their study focused on potential relationships between strong sense of place, environmental concern, and citizen action.

As with any phenomenon, measuring sense of place can be approached objectively or subjectively. Additionally, there is no clear choice as to which approach closely represents a quantitative measurement (see the table below for an example of a simplified framework describing these two approaches in regards to sense of place). Zia and his colleagues point out that pure objectivity and pure subjectivity lie on either end of a continuum. They set out to find an approach that falls along this continuum and is based on descriptive reports of observable phenomena.

To represent a person’s environmental concern, the research team used a conceptualized version of ambit. Ambit represents an individual’s periphery of their movements over a period of time in relation to a home place. For example, over the course of a week, one’s ambit may be focused mostly around a home place, then emphasis is given to workplace, market, friend’s house, gym, etc. The particular places outside of the home can be quantified in terms of distance, as well as time spent and frequency of trips.

To operationalize ambit, the researchers collected data from 74 residents of Silicon Valley in California. The survey aimed at eliciting respondent’s memory of trips taken over the course of a year. The resulting data suggested 5% less time spent for every ten miles distance away from home. However, significant deviation from the spatial discounting rate (i.e. 5% for ten miles), led to the rejection that concern is a function of location alone and therefore is also inherently subjective.

Survey respondents also provided data regarding “self-reporting activism” and attendance to voluntary community meetings, which allowed for an exploration between sense of place and community action. The data suggested respondents who spend a higher weighted average of time closer to home are more likely to participate in community action. The researchers point out that these findings are not necessarily generalizable, however future empirical research could shed more light on ambit based sense of place. For example, GPS data or spatial models – in addition to surveys – would provide a more robust set of data regarding individual movement between particular places.

Asim and his colleagues provide clear insight into the importance of developing these types of proxies, such as their proposed ambit-based, sense of place theory: “As we work to develop new formal and informal institutions for dealing with problems that both exist in places and cross the boundaries of established spaces, it will be increasingly important to know something about people's contours of meaningful place attachments as experienced on the ground”.