Place identity

Place identity or place-based identity refers to a cluster of ideas about place and identity in the fields of geography, urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, environmental psychology, ecocriticism and urban sociology/ecological sociology. It concerns the meaning and significance of places for their inhabitants and users, and how these meanings contribute to individuals' conceptualizations of self. Methodologies for understanding place identity primarily involve qualitative techniques, such as interviewing, participant observation, discourse analysis and mapping a range of physical elements. Some urban planners, urban designers and landscape architects use forms of deliberative planning, design charettes and participatory design with local communities as a way of working with place identity to transform existing places as well as create new ones. This kind of planning and design process is sometimes referred to as placemaking.