Place and Placelessness

In his chapter, "Place and Placelessness in American History," Glassberg talks about the formation of a sense of place, and brings up the argument of some critics that Americans, especially in modern society, lack that sense of place. We discussed this topic in class when we talked about whether or not a utilitarian commercial building like a shopping mall could provide that sense. I think the fascinating thing about this argument is I can definitely see the truths on both sides.

Take for example this quote from Wallace about placelessness:
"Critics argue that in the modern global economy anything can come from anywhere, eroding our perception of the uniqueness of places. They distinguish between an authentic sense of place that has evolved through the interaction of local residents with a distinctive built environment that visibly demonstrates continuity with past land uses, and a place identity that corporate leaders or the mass media have arbitrarily assigned to a standardized, interchangeable, instant landscape."

This summer I had the opportunity to visit my stepmother's cousin's beach house in Norfolk, Virginia. It's part of a glitzy new planned community (built directly adjacent to a down-on-its-luck part of town) where all the houses are built to look older than they are. Some of them are supposed to look like old-fashioned shingled beach cottages, some like colorful Victorians, and still others like Colonial Revivals. While they are beautiful, immaculate, and huge, the sidewalks are wide and walkable, and the views are amazing, the community has a distinctly false feel to it. It's intended to look and feel like a "classic American hometown." To me, it was trying really hard to be a quaint, homey place, but, as Glassberg quotes Wallace Stegner, "No place is a place until the things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments." It's nice, but as our guest speaker said the other day of The Greene, it's "make believe."

Now I'll turn to another Glassberg passage:
"Places, in the end, are not interchangeable with other places....even the most undistinguished-looking mall or fast-food restaurant can become a site where a distinctive sense of place and history is created in the community....To those living outside a community, a franchise restaurant there is interchangeable with any other; to local residents, it is a particular place where conversations about the local past occur, where time is passed and becomes 'past.'"

There used to be a Borders bookstore across from Eastgate Mall (near Cincinnati). Last year Borders went bankrupt. The closing of this store was depressing to me, as I had strong personal memories associated with it. Built when I was about eight, it immediately became one of my favorite places. I spent countless hours there over the years. It became a meeting point for my divorced parents to exchange me every other weekend. It was the place I became addicted to frozen coffees, the place I read some of my favorite books, the place I attended midnight releases, the place I did college homework. Maybe it wasn't anything distinctive, even by Borders standards, and I'm sure independent bookstores and coffee shops weren't sorry to see it go. But to me, it represented a great deal of my childhood and young adult life, and I was saddened to lose it.

So I can understand the argument that today’s consumer-driven, high-tech America is suffering from placelessness. But I think Glassberg is more accurate when he says that we have “an acute sense of attachment to multiple places.” Maybe the transient nature of our buildings and our obsession with the present and instant gratification is indicative of a general disregard for historical authenticity. But that doesn’t make the attachments we give to (many) places any less significant. Maybe one day, those trust fund kids in those beach houses will be putting up an historical marker on "ye olde towne greene.” And it won’t have anything to do with the faux Victorian facades of their homes, but the history they make there as a community.