4 Continuity and stability.
Within our home and local environment we tend to feel a comforting sense of stability. As argued by Relph (1976) such a sense of stability may be most likely to grow in places where people have had the greatest variety of experiences, especially experiences that occur in the context of relationships with other people.
Relph E, Place and Placelessness, London: Pion, 1976
It is likely that the sense of stability will increase the longer we continue to live in the same place. In addition it may be strengthened further when families are aware that several generations of their ancestors also lived in the same community. Narratives, beliefs, and customs related to the community that have been transmitted from previous generations will then be merged with the personal memories of the current residents. In several of the communities discussed in this website many of the inhabitants had lived within the community since birth, and in some there would have been an awareness of a shared history going back into the distant past. Members of the Welsh speaking communities destroyed by the construction of reservoirs or the creation of a military training area could trace their ancestry back for a century or two, while to people on St Kilda it would have seemed as though their ancestors had always lived on the islands.
5 Privacy and safety.
Most of us value the privacy we feel within our own homes. There is a general convention that others may enter our homes only by invitation. Within our neighbourhood we expect to be protected from antisocial behaviour and crime. Today we look to the police to maintain an acceptable level of security, supplemented by our individual crime prevention measures. We display evidence that our houses contain burglar alarms, or we may take part in neighbourhood watch schemes. Inhabitants of communities that existed in the middle ages would in addition have enjoyed the benefit of town walls, with gates through which only appropriately authorised people were allowed to pass.
6 Social interaction and social support.
It is evident that in Britain people tend to move home more often than in the past. In addition it may be the case that there is less social contact between neighbours. Nevertheless, many people still live close to friends or members of their family and may have frequent contact with them. These ties serve many social functions, including the possibility of social support. Practical support may be given when one person has skills or knowledge that may be helpful to the recipient, while emotional support may be welcomed when difficulties arise, major decisions have to be taken, or distressing life events occur. In all the places described in this website such interaction with family and friends would have formed a major part of the attachment individuals felt to their particular community
An excellent website on the Psychology of Place can be found at http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~janzb/place/psychology.htm. It contains an extensive bibliography. A book that is especially relevant is Altman I & Low S M, ed., Place Attachment, New York: Plenum Press, 1992.
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