10/2 Essay

     In his essay "Place and Placelessness in American History", Glassberg attempts to explain why we as Americans have less of a connection to our history and community than other cultures do. He describes a theory put forth by some historians known as "placelessness"- that Americans, due to our tendency to shift geographically numerous times over the course of our lives, never develop solid ties to our surroundings and therefore to our own past- that we are too mobile to develop a true sense of place. Glassberg also states that historians blame the current social environment on this lack of historical belonging- the mass media and Internet have saturated our ideas of place with false locations that have simply had an idea attached to them and presented to the American population to be accepted as a location's true identity. Adding to that is the simple fact that everything in today's world has become so sped up, which many historians believe further lessens the chance that Americans will develop a sense of place.
    However, Glassberg does not agree with these arguments. He believes that while Americans are a very mobile people, we are also capable of forming attachments to several locations.  One of Glassberg's points towards the end of his essay is that you cannot interchange one place with another, meaning that we have specific memories and ideas that we associate with individual locations, and those memories and ideas can't be matched or switched with the memories and ideas that we have of other locations. Every location is therefore unique to each individual, who forms his or her own attachments to that location. Glassberg also points out that we have varying degrees of association with places- a person can simultaneously be attached to the suburb in which they are living, as well as the larger city that the suburb is attached too, as well as the entire state (and ultimately the country). Therefore, Glassberg defines a place as a location with which have formed some kind of attachment to. A place is a location that has become imbedded in a certain way within our memory that affects our perception of that area and how society functions around that area.
    I think that a sense of place can definitely be at least one source of blame for why Disney's America theme park never came to fruition. The park was to be located in a place that many people had very distinct ideas about. People who lived, worked, or had visited that area at some point in their past were very afraid about what would happen if a giant theme park was built there. It would mean the construction of hotels, malls, shops, more roads, and throngs of people, all of which would eliminate that place as the residents once knew it. It was because of this strong sense of place to that area that people put up such fierce resistance to the Disney plan and why Disney eventually decided to call off the project.