Community and place

Place, the awareness of it, is multi-scalar.

While it is typically experienced as something highly personal, emergent within the consciousness of an individual, it is also recognised at wider-reaching levels like those associated with community.

The reasons behind this broader-scale acknowledgement, as with those associated with individual awareness of place, are varied. But what can distinguish place at this particular scale is its deliberate use. Place often springs upon an individual without warning, without conscious effort. Whereas in the context of community it can in fact be used intentionally, as a tool, to promote an agenda, to provide a political voice or to give life and significance to a plan.

In this circumstance, the sense of place is captured and put to work. The wild sense is domesticated, or at least an attempt is made.

And that’s not a bad thing. A tangible sense of place can in fact serve as a critical component in the definition of a community. It can bring members of that geographic group together in a way that significantly strengthens their idea of community and gives meaning to their definition of community. It can serve as that common ground, in this case shared perception, that links them uniquely and supports the idea of a collective voice. It can provide them membership in the true sense of the word.

Place is, in this instance, an individual and potentially very personal awareness distributed amongst a group. And it’s a particularly powerful link, a bond that creates a strong foundation upon which other aspects of community can be explored, built and realised.

That shared sense of place can embrace within it the otherwise disenfranchised and help bring them into the fold. It can motivate and serve as a call to participation amongst those who might otherwise operate in isolation, assuming their sense of place was singular and of no particular interest to others. It can draw them into the group of community, in a natural way, bound by the significance of and connection to a particular location. And once part of the community, the sense of place they share with others can help establish and support them as genuine contributors.

This simultaneous spanning of experiential scales from the highly personal and individualistic to the expanded boundaries of a broader group and community exists as a profound characteristic of place. It is quite amazing really and in my opinion speaks to its significance.

And this particular quality of place does not go unrecognised. I’ve seen numerous examples where communities have leveraged a sense of place, used its shared experience and awareness to strengthen the bonds amongst, and therefore the unified voice of, a group of residents, to create and bolster a geographic identity.

By way of example, I live in the Thorndon neighbourhood of Wellington. When I moved here four years ago, I was aware of the existence of such a neighbourhood, knew its approximate boundaries or at least its topological positioning on the map of Wellington neighbourhoods and possessed the odd fact that it was for instance the birthplace of one of New Zealand’s most celebrated writers, Katherine Mansfield. But my knowledge of it beyond that, on the level of anything like community awareness, was absent.

In those intervening years I have been struck by just how powerful is the sense of community amongst Thorndon residents and though I may not have previously articulated it as such, just how effectively the shared sense of place here is employed to strengthen and grow that community identity.

Though fairly small, Thorndon boasts more than one active residents association, producing on a fairly regular schedule outputs like newsletters while also convening community meetings. I’ve read those newsletters and have attended a couple of those resident association meetings, all the while surprised at the level of passion with which this community, really its unique and shared sense of place, is considered and held. I leaned a good deal about the history of this neighbourhood and that it was inhabited by many whose roots here ran deep.

And I learned that some who actively participate in these resident groups, the community leaders I would call them (though they may not embrace that title themselves), have been quite deliberate and vocal in their use of place to communicate and promote a local agenda to the broader political structure of the city of Wellington, within which they are situated and must necessarily operate.

Some of the interactions between neighbourhood and city could be characterised as contentious, as for instance the ongoing push against Wellington City Council to revisit its zoning guidelines which, some local voices claim, is currently facilitating a gradual and destructive spread of commercial properties. The cost they explain is a diminished residential tone to the neighbourhood. This they consider an undermining of the character of Thorndon, a commercial gentrification of sorts, as it introduces the detrimental effects of increased traffic and displaces the unique to Wellington and place-defining residential architecture of this area.

Yet in the midst of this rather quarrelsome interaction there has emerged a community improvement project, financed and implemented by the city I assume, which clearly demonstrates common ground. Whilst it may not directly address the spread of commercial properties, it most definitely recognises and speaks to a locally generated sense of place identity. Interestingly, it interjects that proclamation of identity, based on an acknowledgement of unique historical roots, right into the location at the heart of the commercialisation debate.

It is a sense of place that has unmistakably been employed here and which serves as a common means with which to span, on some level at least, the differing geographies and associated political perspectives of the city of Wellington and one of its neighbourhoods. This role as common platform for shared thinking is a hallmark of location-based approaches to problem solving and highlights that peculiar power of geography woven within the idea of place.

The project area in question is commonly described as Tinakori Village. I’m not aware that name represents anything official – I’ve not seen it reflected consistently on maps – but it is most certainly accepted and in common use, amongst the locals if no one else. That in itself is an interesting idea, the use of location names and relationships to sense of place, worth exploring at another time.

Tinakori Village is a commercial zone, running as a straight line along either side of the neighbourhood’s primary thoroughfare, Tinakori Road, and representing the setting for most of the retail activity in the immediate area. These businesses consist primarily of antique shops, art galleries, pubs and restaurants, and spa or wellness facilities. So certainly what some would consider upscale establishments and not necessarily the type of places one would feel compelled to visit every day. Yet I’ve found that the area is consistently well visited, with foot traffic as well as the expected vehicular traffic plying the main transportation artery between heavily populated neighbourhoods to the north and west, and downtown Wellington.

Some months ago, heralded by construction warning signs that sprouted at either end of Tinakori Village, the city embarked on a significant improvement project in the area, which resulted primarily in the upgrading of footpaths and kerbs along several local streets. The steady drone of construction equipment and activities became a characteristic of the neighbourhood during this time. When it was completed, the improvements to the stretch of Tinakori Road footpaths within the Village emerged as the centrepiece of this work.

Beyond the upgrades to the footpath paving and kerbs within Tinakori Village, there were other improvements as well, including the addition of benches and significantly, strips of stone pavers inscribed with quotes from historical and noteworthy residents of Thorndon. These inscriptions were a unique addition to the project and clearly meant to highlight the contributions of local historical figures, their settings of white stone contrasting sharply with the black of the newly paved footpaths surrounding them.

The quotes that now grace the ground underfoot in Tinakori Village are sourced from a mix of creative Thorndon residents, including but not limited to writers and painters and composers. A complete list was recently published and promoted in one of the resident association newsletters, providing not only a handy reference but also an endorsement and recognition of the level of support and agreement between the neighbourhood and the city. This acknowledgement is based on a shared sense of place.

The creative individuals behind the quotes represent a widely ranging collection of professions, interests, experiences and perspectives, but they share in this case a common bond of residence. They share a connection on some level with this place, this community called Thorndon. And it is that bond that links them now, not only to the physical footpaths in the Tinakori Village but also to one another, though their lives might have run their respective courses in wholly separate worlds.

And flipping that around, their quotes, snippets of thoughts from a far-ranging group of former residents, reinforce a specific and localised sense of place for those less notable currently residing in the neighbourhood, as well as those from the outside, shopping or otherwise passing through. That expression of place might trigger a curiosity in those passers-by to know more, while it feeds a level of pride amongst the local residents and sparks a genuine desire to share who they are, to convey the unique history in which their present manifestations have been forged.

This sense of place then is at once a creator, definer and promoter of specific identity, while also a powerful means of connection and communication with others. In this way it serves humanity on a profound level.

Such is the power and significance of place, spanning across time, across geography, to inspire not only the individual and their highly personal levels of awareness but also the broader community and the reflection of its identity – both as a reinforcement to itself and as a proclamation to the world outside itself.