Helyi identitás regionális szinten

Abstract

The interaction of people and place creates local identity, providing orientation in a complex world and a sense of place for residents. Over time, as the cultural interactions of a group creates links between narratives and places, local identities evolve. These identities are impacted by urban expansion: meaningful places are included, changed or completely built over completely by urban sprawl. Additionally, changes within the population may result in a fading narrative, because the group that originally created the narrative moved away. The flux of place-related cultural stories will be discussed in the context of suburban development in the US, where growth in suburban areas is driven by economic goals and guided by land-use planning. Middlesex County, New Jersey, is situated in the New York metropolitan area and will serve as a case study for the question of how environmental planning on a regional scale can support local identity within a changing environment. This includes the story of the Hungarian community of New Brunswick as an example of a sense of place that was strong in the first half of the twentieth century, but that faded over time.