Over the last three decades, within the context of globalisation and intensified inter-urban competition, we have observed the growing use of market-centred strategy such as ‘marketing or branding places’. Despite the worsening of the economic situation since the 2008 global financial crisis, the overall trend of expansion of place marketing based on marketing science keeps going further in many cities in South Korea. Why does this phenomenon happen? How can we interpret it at this time? What does this mean for the cities and their residents? In order to answer these questions, this thesis attempts to understand the process of place marketing projects, and analyse how they were politically formed and what their actual effects were for residents. In addition, it develops a critical understanding of the evolution of urban place marketing projects from the political perspective in Gwangju, South Korea: the Gwangju Biennale, the Asian Culture Complex, the Dome Baseball Stadium, the Urban Folly, and the Gwangju Universiade 2015. Through a nation-wide Korean expert survey and a case study of Gwangju, this research shows that Korean place marketing shares common trends with Western cities as well as having some specifically Korean characteristics. In particular, it tries to reveal the evolving nature of Korean place marketing by employing a combination of multi-scalar and cultural politics approaches. The thesis concludes that some Korean cities such as Gwangju have moved toward neo-liberalisation by employing entrepreneurial strategies of place marketing.

The edge city is often criticized as being a center of placelessness. It is the devaluation and commodification of place in contemporary approaches to urban design and planning that is stifling the prosperity of place identity and subsequently the ability for edge cites to create 'a sense of place'. It is probable that a broadened understanding of the situational context and the role of human experience in place making can suggest alternatives to current practices that reduce place to location. Capturing the essence of place inspires superior strategies for producing place identity and a grasp on the meaning of how recovering ‘a sense of place’ is fundamental in turning edge cities from consumable space into real and lasting places.

The study of place has been a component of the recreation literature for about three decades. Most researchers have sought to either describe the cognitive and evaluative beliefs (place meaning) recreational visitors ascribe to a setting or identify the intensity of the human-place bond (place attachment). Few have attempted to qualitatively investigate the meanings visitors ascribe to a setting and quantitatively measure the intensity of their attachment to that setting within the same study design. Nor has there been much work aimed at understanding these concepts in marine environments. In this dissertation, I began to fill these gaps in the literature through the use of a three- phase multiple-method research design. In the first phase, I conducted 20 interviews to identify the meanings that recreational visitors ascribe to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) and to further explore how the symbolic interactionist framework can be used to understand place meanings. Ten place meaning themes emerged from the informants' statements. The second phase used 34 items developed from the 10 meaning themes that emerged from the previous interviews and a place attachment scale to explore how recreational visitors' attachment to a marine resource was reflected in their depictions of why the resource is meaningful. Three hundred and twenty-four individuals, living in Queensland, Australia, responded to a postal/email survey conducted during January and February of 2009. The results indicated that all the meanings recreational visitors ascribe to the GBRMP provide context for the attachment they hold for the setting, however particular sets of meanings are important in differentiating between attachment intensity levels. The final phase, which also used the postal/email survey described, identified how place attachment affected the relationship, identified by Stern et al. (1995), between the recreational visitors' environmental world view (EWV) and attitudes toward negative impacts on the reef ecosystem. I found that place attachment partially mediated the relationship between EWV and attitudes toward impacts. The conclusions presented in this dissertation filled in gaps in the recreation literature's understanding of place while providing further insight into how place meaning influences other constructs important to natural resource management.

Place is highly connected with outdoor education; it is defined by the location of the learning process and it designates both practically and theoretically ways to foster to students a strong bond with natural places. Place attachment refers to this bond or, in other words, the love relationship, one can develop with a place. This research tries to investigate if there is a causal relationship between outdoor education and development of place attachment. A quasi-experimental design research was conducted to 31 teenagers, 12-13 years old. A questionnaire, for measuring the level of place attachment to the natural surroundings of their school, was distributed at two different timelines. Four different dimensions of place attachment were measured; place identity, place dependence, social bonding and nature bonding. The experimental group participated in the program “Attachment to my Local Natural Landscape”, which was developed especially for this study and promoted direct connection with the land, through outdoor activities. The control group received no intervention. The results demonstrated that the program influenced only the female participants of the experimental group. No significant differences were indicated between the two groups after the implementation of the program. The small sample and the short length program implemented were important limitations of this study, which demand further future research to extract more clear results.

The social and neurosciences are moving toward a conceptualization of the psychological construct of sense of place in relation with spatial cognition, place imageability, and meaning. To help advance progress, this dissertation proposes a conceptual framework of sense of place that includes variables of spatial navigational strategy (i.e., egocentric and allocentric) and place imageability using notions of edges, paths, landmarks, districts, nodes. Three studies using different methods tested the proposed framework. Study 1 used a questionnaire and an interview-based protocol analysis to examine whether navigational strategy associated with participants’ levels of sense of place for recalled urban neighbourhoods. Preliminary work investigating whether sense of place and spatial navigation varied with place imageability was also done using qualitative analyses. Participants used more egocentric and allocentric strategies during cognitive map navigation when sense of place was stronger compared to when they recalled places for which they felt weak or neutral levels of sense of place. Seven categories were revealed from participants’ qualitative descriptions of urban place visualizations after completing three sense of place scales (i.e., home-sense, compactness, environment, safety, vibrancy, design, and aesthetics) and differed depending on sense of place condition. Study 2 enabled participants to articulate recollections of settings for which they felt different strengths of sense of place via a cognitive mapping task. Results reinforced the notion that individuals who experience a strong level of sense of place for an urban environment also recall more of the physical features that make it imageable. Existing literature was confirmed by this study’s results that paths and landmarks are integral to urban place imageability. Study 3 gathered information about community members’ current representations of their urban neighbourhood. Results supported hypotheses based on results of Studies 1 and 2. Nodes, edges, and landmarks were found to be particularly meaningful to residents’ spatial understanding of their neighbourhood. The fact that more allocentric strategies than egocentric strategies were used in each of the three place imageability conditions (compared to non-significant differences in sense of place conditions in Study 1) highlights compelling future research questions concerning the three variables of the proposed conceptual framework of sense of place. Similar to Study 1, qualitative analyses in Study 3 revealed paths as the predominant meaningful place imageable feature noted by residents. Thematic information about the features in each area reported to have meaning for residents indicate the categories of environment, aesthetics, and design as most prevalent. As a whole, this dissertation can inform future environmental psychology research, as well as the practices of urban planners, as they consider spatial navigation and place imageable attributes in relation to the psychological construct of sense of place in urban environments. Planners and researchers alike may benefit from this dissertation as they respond to human spatial needs while facilitating a sense of attachment and identity toward, and compatibility with, city spaces. Finally, findings may assist social scientists in clarifying how sense of place develops in urban neighbourhoods, and how it is experienced over time. / Graduate

In an increasingly globalized world, emphasis on attracting investment, talent and tourists has resulted in similar iconic urban landscapes in cities. This has increased concerns on the reduction or complete loss of local identity along urban waterfronts. This study aimed to develop a set of design guidelines that contribute to the establishment of local identity on urban waterfronts. The research focused on the history and current status of urban waterfront development, globalization impacts on urban landscape, notions of place identity and place making. It defined local identity as one type of place identity and explored the key aspects that foster local identity in waterfront development. A case study was conducted by analyzing these key aspects in a successful waterfront development. From a synthesis of the findings, a set of design guidelines was developed and then tested on an unsuccessful project; recommendations for future improvement were based on the developed guidelines.

Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate whether Vara municipality has a continuous picture of their identity, profile and image. Globalization has contributed to the increasingly growing of place marketing. Therefore, the study goes on to using the concepts of identity, profile and image to find out if Vara Municipality communicates similar throughout the whole organization and find out their all through core values. Globalisation will be an interpretive framework for the work that describes why the place marketing is becoming more pressing. The sense of place will be a central part of this study as it is the feelings and images of different places that will be described by the municipality together with the identity, profile and image. The method consists of structured- and semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The structured interviews were used to find out which image the neighboring municipalities had of the Vara Municipality and they were also used to find out the identity of the municipality by interview its own residents. The semi-structured interviews were used to find out the profile by interviewing the quality- and HR-manager of Vara municipality. The results and analysis concludes that Vara municipality has two central values of the municipality that is consistently in identity, profile and image, these values are culture and entrepreneurship. The identity and the image had several similarities but the profile was very different comparing to the image of the neighboring municipalities and its own residents. This may be because the profile represents what the municipality want others to see, and can be a bit of a ”belief in the future”. Wara municipality needs to work on the profile if they want a consistent image so it fits better with their identity and image.

Purpose The study theoretically examine if satisfaction of a sports team can create place attachment to a city from a residents’ perspective. It empirically tests if this theory can be applied in reality through a case study of a handball team IFK Kristianstad, and Kristianstad city. Design/methodology/approach A deductive approach that was based on theoretical insights from place attachment, satisfaction and service quality. A quantitative study was conducted on spectators in Kristianstad Arena. Findings The paper reveals that high service quality leads to high satisfaction among spectators, which creates place attachment to Kristianstad. The results proved that residents of Kristianstad are more place attached to the city than people living elsewhere. Originality/value The value of our paper is a new insight of place attachment from a resident’s perspective. The paper highlights that satisfaction of a sports team actually can create place attachment to a city. Research implications There are many variables that are important when exploring residents’ satisfaction and place attachment, several of them may be education, healthcare, entertainment and variety in a city. By studying the different variables it is possible to receive a larger perspective from residents’ point of views. Additionally, the study could be applied in a larger context where the target group is the whole population of a city. Practical implications The practical contribution might be valuable information for IFK Kristianstad about the spectators of the team; among other, the information demonstrates that the team is valuable for the city. Since the handball team is of importance for both the city and its residents, this information might be useful when marketing Kristianstad city in the future.

This thesis is based on seven weeks of fieldwork in Central Region and Western Region in Ghana and discusses how UNESCO listed forts and castles in the area shall be preserved and used today. Through in-depth interviews with important stakeholders and through observations at forts and castles the intention is to unveil what conflicts are present and also how heritage is being negotiated among these actors. A key issue is whether the sites shall be regarded as commodities or as public memorials. Working with the theoretical concepts of space, place and heritage and how these can be understood in the chosen context the thesis seeks to explain how different actors are able to transform the way these edifices are being used. The thesis’ contribution and what makes it relevant is especially how it illuminates that heritage is constantly being re-produced as a response to input from stakeholders. It also stresses the challenges in how to deal with heritage property in the contemporary planning context.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Oct. 21, 2008). An Interdisciplinary Master of Arts thesis in English, Education, and Environment and Natural Resources. Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-154).