Understanding the character of a particular place is difficult. So why bother? Why go to the trouble of exploring the personality of a place? The answer is that by consciously reflecting on the spirit, the personality, the character of each place we can make decisions—about policy, about competing opportunities for development, about preservation, about planning, about design, about whether and how to develop tourism and promote the place—in a way that fits with the actual place.
The single most important asset of a place is the place itself. Placemaking professionals have become expert in getting at the significant characteristics of a place, but often ignore what we might call its character. Yet the character of a place—the distinctive qualities of its landscape, cultures, and built environment, and the emotional connections these inspire in people—is the context in which all of our work to make a place better and more successful should be embedded. It is always a real, particular place we are trying to preserve, improve, and promote—not a generic model of a place, but the real thing.
All the marks of human presence lend character to a place, accruing in layers over time. What people have built in a place changes it and becomes a kind of physical memory. The collective memory of the people who live in a place, and the ways they interact, including their social institutions, folkways, mores, rituals, repeated events, and media such as books and films all have a role in the dynamics of a place. So does the art produced there—indeed everything produced there. The past extends into the present, and distinctiveness is generated and preserved. A place can be said to have memory because people have memory, and because of what persists in the physical and social environment.
Fundamentally, when we have a handle on the personality of a place we may be better able to preserve what we value there and improve what we think needs improving. We may be better able to resist the forces of homogenization that are eroding distinctiveness and making each place more and more like every other place. We can create strategies for design and development that have a higher likelihood of success—and of contributing to what we love about the place.