From sense of place to visualization of place: examining people-place relationships for insight on developing geovisualizations

Abstract

Effective resource planning incorporates people-place relationships, allowing these efforts to be inclusive of the different local beliefs, interests, activities and needs. ‘Geovisualizations’ can serve as potentially powerful tools for facilitating ‘place-conscious’ resource planning, as they can be developed with high degrees of realism and accuracy, allowing people to recognize and relate to them as ‘real places’. However, little research has been done on this potential, and the place-based applications of these visual tools are poorly understood. This study takes steps toward addressing this gap by exploring the relationship between sense of place and ‘visualization of place’. Residents of the Capital Regional District of BC, Canada, were surveyed about their relationship with local coastal places, concerns for the coast, and how they mentally visualize these places. Factor analysis identified four sense of place dimensions - nature protection values, community and economic well-being values, place identity and place dependence, and four coastal concerns dimensions - ecological, private opportunities, public space and boating impacts. Visualization data were coded and treated as dependent variables in a series of logistic regressions that used sense of place and coastal concerns dimensions as predictors. Results indicated that different aspects of sense of place and (to a lesser degree) concerns for places influence the types of elements people include in their mental visualization of place. In addition, sense of place influenced the position and perspective people assume in these visualizations. These findings suggest that key visual elements and perspectives speak to different place relationships, which has implications for developing and using geovisualizations in terms of what elements should be included in tools and (if appropriate) depicted as affected by potential management or development scenarios.

Place and city: toward a geography of engagement

“…Among the three concepts discussed in this study, SoP is the one in which the spatial dimension has been more thoroughly studied since its affective bonds are toward an area (Altman and Low, 1992). In turn, recent studies found out that a strong SoP helps to recall and describe memorable places (McCunn and Gifford, 2018), influencing the position and perspective that people infer in these visualizations (Newell and Canessa, 2018). The spatial dimension of social capital has also been analyzed (Rutten et al, 2010; Westlund et al, 2010; Foster et al, 2015), advocating for the potential of understanding and conceptualizing SC geographically (Putnam, 2000; Holt, 2008).…”

Challenges in creating a 3D participatory platform for urban development

“…In their study Evans-Cowley & Hollander (2010) suggested that in a social network the number of "likes" can gather a social group against (or for) an urban project but it is laborious to make these "likes" visible public hearings. In addition, interactive scenes establish neutrality and transparency regarding the participation; a fact that cannot be addressed with static pictures that present an author's bias by the choice of quality, perspective, or viewpoints (Onitsuka & al., 2018;Downes & Lange, 2015;Méricskay, 2012). Moreover interactive maps are more effective and suited for complex tasks but require more time .…”

“…This conceptual depiction can be used to collect information (as insights, emotions, opinions or problems) and to empower a robust basis for discussion or communication aiming at a specific topic (Hayek, 2011). In contrast, photo-realistic models or experimental representations are more intuitive (Tutzauer & Becker, 2016), linked to emotions (Newell & Canessa, 2018) and considered to be more natural . However, excessive realism leads to an uncanny feeling, therefore mixed representations combining abstraction and verism have proved their efficiency (Appleton & Lovett, 2003;Lokka & Çöltekin, 2018).…”

“…5. Factors such as expertise, age, background or preferences have a direct influence on the user spatial features perception (Newell & Canessa, 2018), nevertheless, tools exist to limit their impact. The following challenge can be put forward: [C5] How to design a system that takes into account user features in order to adjust the virtual scene accordingly?…”

depicting the Consequences of Storm Surge Risk Communication Opportunities and Ethics

“…This choice of words disambiguates the localizing effects of visualizations from the concept of "place attachment" that speaks to a wider range of place based social and cultural meanings (Hidalgo and Hernandez, 2001). As it pertains to visualization, there is increased interest in effectively mapping and understanding the role of place attachment, and better understanding the relationship between visualizations and place attachment so as to better inform decisions (e.g., resource management, barriers to climate adaptation) (Newell and Canessa, 2018).…”