Guest Topic: A Doctoral Student's Analysis Of... Places
Guest Author: Jaime (“Jay”) R. Argueta Jr.
The purpose of this post is simple. How do we define places, and what does a place represent? Starting with the former, defining a place can be complicated in many ways. In defining a place in a physical sense, scholars can take on two methods. First, they make take on the micro-definition. The micro-definition suggests that a place is an identifiable building or structure with an address—something we can all locate on google maps. Conversely, the macro-perspective of places may include proximal places (i.e., streets, blocks) or entire neighborhoods. However, places tend to be much more than their physical structures.
The term “place” is ambiguous in that it brings a wide variety of thoughts about the location of a place, emotions regarding that place, or even ideas. A place also defines social networks, communities, or even non-physical spaces like the internet. Much of what we have come to learn in school is that a place equates to a geographic location. Meanwhile, what we have experienced outside of school is that these locations represent so much more. Places sometimes take the form of an experience that is marketed to us or what we experience in the present. Take, for example, Coachella. Coachella isn’t necessarily a place, but rather a marketed experience in different locations. When we think about Coachella in terms of a place, it is defined in its experience. Thus, sometimes places are not fixed in space. So, when I talk about places, I am more than talking about a fixed location, but an identifiable location that embodies a function.
The Evolution of Places
How do places even come to exist or continue? For the most part, places do not start as good or bad but gradually turn into these odd creatures out of the decisions made from their owners. Particularly, owners try to achieve one of the two goals: thriving or barely floating. A thriving place keeps a sufficient amount of problems away such that it does not collapse. An unsuccessful place—or a place that is barely floating—is overwhelmed by the problems and ultimately spreads it to neighboring areas. Our cities contain a variety of places on the continuum between good and bad.
Initially, owners make a series of decisions that lead to structures or entities we come to recognize. The owner of places, whether it is the legal owner or a kid in charge of their basement, is concerned with the way the place operates. Within some limits, owners draw from their authority of ownership and property rights to model the place into their vision. Whether their vision is to be a corner store bistro or slum-apartment, owners create rules, promote behaviors, alter physical characteristics, and profit. These same decisions and use of the power, thus, mold places. Moreover, whether or not these places ultimately thrive and become good or bad, depends on whether or not the people in the community buy whatever they may be selling.
In part, most people do not need to be sold on the product but, rather, the lifestyle. What I mean here is that, for individuals, buying brand names of toilet paper or cereal boxes and living in a place come as a package—a view of public choice theory. People with similar tastes, views, and habits settle into areas that they can pay for, and that naturally provide those goods. Even a ghetto, after some time, builds up a majority of agreeing residents after a while. And there is a sense of stability, leadership, and agency that keep the place moving. In a sense, a ghetto is more of a stable low-rent area than it is the traditional disagreeable living area, less it falls and crumbles and does not remain a place that is supported. Some observers note that vital places are places that are supported by their vision of homogeneous people. The people in the communities much stay statistically the same and buy into the same things. Individuals, of course, change, but places are forever the same so long as people continue to move into that place.
Management of Places
On the other side of the spectrum, people may have much less input and control over places. In criminology, the theory of place management tells a story of how managers/owners of places influence the setting, organization, and stability of a place. From the physical design of the exterior to the service inside, managers influence how people perceive and support the venue. Books such as Nudge by Sunstein and Thaler speak to how owners curate the place to sell an experience or certain items. Take, for example, a set of clothing stores that all sell the same product. They sell similar products in similar major cities to the same crowd. One would suppose that the layout or the way the manager conducts their business has a crucial impact if the sales show a different average.
To varying extents, managers have different amounts of control over their space and can influence the influx of customers. They are able to get the customer basis they want and handle who enters versus who does not. Now, this is all not to say that the settings (i.e., pubs, gas stations, clothing stores) these managers are in do not influence how the manager controls the environment. Nevertheless, they have opportunities to react and be proactive in how places get customers and define the experience.
Our Definition of Places
So I ask again, what is a place? Is it the people or the owners who define it? On its whole simplistic idea, we can agree that a place is an identifiable object that has a function in our daily lives. If we bring the simple concept out further, places become a complex creature developed from an interplay of a variety of choices and decisions made prior. Choices that you as a person made and choices that other individuals have dreamed up shape a specific place. A place represents a whole host of experiences from beginning to end.
Guest Author’s Bio
Jaime Argueta is a doctoral student studying criminology. His main focus is in crime prevention with an emphasis on places and neighborhood change. Currently, his projects in progress are on gentrification, place management, and urban renewal in the United States.
