“Places” is a key idea that the office has been discussing and thinking about over summer, the staff training last week, and also especially during this period of StreetFest. The theme for this year’s StreetFest, to embrace fully, projects the hopes “aimed to promote care for place, located within a context of personal relationships and focused on attentiveness to particularity and otherness.”
I think a “place” is somewhere where its residents have a sense of belonging, somewhere where reciprocal and organic relationships between the residents and their environments grow together. People shape places. Some people decide to live in a specific place with no intention to leave, while some people move from place to place. 
If places reflect the people within them, then transient people and returning residents are “windows” to that place. These “windows” bring life, new perspectives, and an air of energy from the outside. A place without “windows” is locked within, sinking slowly into a comatose state. Reflectively, if places influence people too, then would non-vibrant “window-less” place suffocate its residents? What do you think?
5 comments:
I love this entry Ivan. Yes, I am no longer a current S-LC'er but I saw the link from your facebook and wanted to respond. It is often easy to forget 'place' and just confuse it with space in the rigors of the every-day. I have been struggling with this a lot lately in the sprawling urban environment i now find myself in. What defines my place when there are no actually distinctions as to where one neighborhood ends and the other begins? (even though the residents of one do not generally associate themselves with the residents of the other). I began running a few months ago to explore the streets of my neighborhood further but what began as a geographical endeavor quickly became a way to find some 'windows' into the place I live. Its amazing how much you can learn about your 'place' by simply heading out into it at different times of the day with no agenda except an intentional awareness. Suddenly, the static 'space' becomes a vibrant, dynamic 'place'
Great topic. I love to think about place. I think ever since I left Calvin, I’ve been yearning for a place, specifically, a community, neighbors and relationships. A few years ago, after I had just moved from Detroit to Gallup, NM, Jeff told me it could be years before I found that. Sad! But true. As I have moved from city to small town and back to the city, I have loved to learn about place and I’ve learned to love the place I’m in.
Place, to me, is more than people. Place is also the buildings. Historic buildings, run-down homes, parks, grocery stores, liquor stores. In Detroit, there are thousands of abandoned properties, many of which are burned-out buildings. When I lived there, there were three burned-out three-story homes on my block. To me, they looked like this shell that had lost its soul, the inner life was gone. I always thought it was sad and amazing.
But surrounding those homes were many gorgeous and historic three-story homes. And thousands of people who love that city and have no intention of leaving. Place is also about emotion.
Right now I live in a strange part of Denver. Technically, I live in the City of Denver, but I’m two blocks from Aurora – one of the largest suburbs in the U.S. I live in a huge apartment complex surrounded by many other complexes and condos. It’s not that interesting to look at and usually we feel like there is no tangible neighborhood. But my husband works at a bike shop and next door is a great Mexican restaurant that we frequent. My husband now knows the owner and some of the staff quite well. Suddenly, we feel like regulars and it feels like a neighborhood.
I don’t believe any place is without ‘windows’. I think sometimes we just drive through neighborhoods too quickly to see the people, the buildings and the emotions. Another great reason to ride your bike or walk.
Sorry for taking almost forever to respond. I am guilty of trying to find my own place this school year!
You've made a really sharp analysis of your environment and I am attempting to extrapolate on your discoveries. It's interesting as I reflect on the real distinction, as you have queried, of a neighborhood. Does it just include the two houses beside mine? Or is it everything within a certain defined perimeter? Urban planners have their own definition when they “planned” the neighborhood. The police and fire departments probably have theirs, and so do we. I think the answer to "what's a neighborhood" is really defined by each individual. It's unique. It comprises of the landmarks, (micro-)communities, institutions, and people that one feels connected to and wishes to share a part of her or his life with. Another dimension to it is also dependent on whom one gets to interact with, and that itself is, as you have earlier mentioned, dependent on what time of the day one is meeting/seeing/communicating with them. Variables: How I wish social issues can be solved by mathematical equations!
I would suggest that in our fast-paced and hurried lives, many people have taken less time to think about what "being" is. Being an individual of a place, being a contributor to the betterment of that place, being a servant to the community or communities of that place, and perhaps a cause of uneasiness to those in the place. Many have become more self-focused, and less conscious of the surroundings. Can schools do something about it? Can families do something about it?
I am guessing this comment is from Bryan K. If it's you Bryan, thanks for commenting and I hope you are enjoying graduate school. This virtual space, our common virtual meeting place, shall continue to serve as our board room where we sharpen one another’s ideas before initiating purposeful projects to serve our communities. If you're not Bryan, thanks for writing too and I welcome you to blog and journey with the S-LC this year.
Hi Heidi, thanks for blogging with us! I thought I could retire for the day after writing the earlier response, but found there’s another comment waiting. Since this topic really excites me, I am going to reply now.
I have covered some newer thoughts in the earlier response, but you have made me think more deeply. Between my post, the first comment, my response, and now your comment, I think we can pretty much come to a more defined conclusion that people is a component of place. I started off the post looking very narrowly, solely at the relationship between people and place because I wondered if that could potentially be one of the first thoughts of our StreetFest participants. I do agree that a more holistic view of a place is necessary, and that includes other distinctive features like buildings. It’s an interesting circular relationship that nurtures one another, and it is happening here too.
I totally agree with you on the point about our driving “through neighborhoods too quickly.” Relating to what you wrote about Detroit, I am thinking about what components make up the “soul” of a location. Could slowing down the pace of life, and making more intentional engagements with our neighborhood help us identify the “soul” of a place?
I definitely think slowing down can help us engage in "place". Getting to know what is going on in the neighborhood. I don't know that we can identify place. Rather, I think we can begin to understand place. "Place" is something that is in a state of flux and impacted every day. If a neighbor who was very active in neighborhood improvement leaves, that can changes things. When I move in, that changes things. When I start taking walks and saying hi to people (like the first person commented) that changes things.
I often hear people talk about a community based on its appearances and maybe its reported crime. But I truly believe you can't really know a neighborhood unless you experience it and I think, as the first person commented, emotionally experience it. Maybe the emotional experience goes along with slowing down. Whizzing through life, through the store, through the traffic lights keeps us from emotionally experience much of anything. Keeps us from caring about the car next to us and the cashier that has to deal with many other cranky customers.
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