randomWalks

This article from the Urban Land Institute asks: "What makes a place a place?" (And why does a "sense of place" feel so scarce in America?)

Changing places has long been a peculiarly American trait: Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1835 that an American changes his residence ceaselessly. When things are going badly—a dead-end job, a failing marriage, rising crime—we cut our ties and move on. In such a vast country, space is our greatest safety valve. No horizon is out of reach. Our abundance of land and our pursuit of new horizons have made us the most mobile, and probably most restless, society on earth, writes David Lamb in A Sense of Place: Listening to Americans. We are refugees in our own country, notes Peter Schrag in Out of Place in America.

originally posted by Ben Fried