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neurologyYou need to know

• A place is a location that has meaning for people because of human experience, attachment, activity, memory or representation.
• Space is an abstract area or location, whereas place is space that has been given meaning by people.
• Human geographers commonly analyse place through location, locale and sense of place: location is where a place is, locale is the physical and social setting, and sense of place is the emotional attachment or meaning people associate with it.
• A layered history means that a place’s present character reflects traces of past events, land uses, buildings, communities and meanings.
• Descriptive approaches to place focus on the visible and measurable characteristics that make one place different from another.
• Social constructionist approaches argue that place meanings are produced through social processes, power relations and the actions of groups and institutions.
• Phenomenological approaches focus on people’s lived, emotional and sensory experience of place.
• John Montgomery’s model explains place identity through three linked elements: physical setting, activity, and image or meaning.
• Place identity can exist at different scales, including localism, regionalism and nationalism.
• Religious sites such as Mecca or Bethlehem can strongly shape place identity by influencing demographics, economic activity, community life, symbolism and visitors’ behaviour.
• Agglomeration is the clustering of people, businesses or activities in one place, suburbanisation is movement from inner urban areas to suburbs, counter-urbanisation is movement from urban areas to rural areas, and regeneration is the renewal of a place after decline.
• Insider perspectives are views of place held by people with personal experience or belonging, while outsider perspectives are views held by people with little direct attachment or limited lived experience of that place.
• Social exclusion means being prevented from fully participating in society, while spatial exclusion means being physically or geographically separated from opportunities, services or valued spaces.
• Near places are geographically close or personally familiar, far places are distant or unfamiliar, experienced places are known through direct lived experience, and media places are known mainly through representations such as film, news, tourism or social media.
• Place signifiers are symbols, landmarks, sounds, images or cultural features that people associate strongly with a place and use to attach meaning to it.
• Endogenous factors are internal characteristics of a place, including location, topography, physical geography, land use, built environment, infrastructure, demographics and economic activity.
• Exogenous factors are external relationships and flows that shape a place, including flows of people, money, resources, technology, investment, information and ideas.
• Globalisation can create a global sense of place by connecting local places to wider global networks, but it can also contribute to placelessness, homogenised landscapes and clone towns.
• Glocalisation means adapting global products, services or ideas to fit local cultures and tastes, such as country-specific fast-food menus.
• Regeneration is the improvement or renewal of a place, rebranding changes how a place is marketed or labelled, re-imaging changes how a place is perceived, and flagship developments are major symbolic projects used to attract investment and reshape place meaning.

• Analyse a place using location, locale and sense of place by identifying its position, describing its physical and social setting, and explaining people’s emotional attachments to it.
• Apply Montgomery’s triangle of place identity by linking physical setting, activities and image or meaning to explain a place’s distinctive character.
• Compare insider and outsider perspectives by identifying the viewpoint of each source, explaining why perceptions differ, and linking differences to factors such as residence, language, identity, experience and belonging.
• Assess how endogenous and exogenous factors shape a place by explaining how internal characteristics and external flows interact to change its demographic, cultural, economic and social character.
• Evaluate representations of place in media, art, literature, tourism material or advertising by considering purpose, audience, selection, bias, accuracy and contrast with lived experience or statistical evidence.
• Use census data, GIS and online mapping tools to investigate place characteristics, selecting relevant indicators such as age structure, ethnicity, deprivation, crime, health or employment.
• Present place data accurately using suitable graphs, maps or diagrams, such as population pyramids, bar charts, pie charts, annotated maps and choropleth maps.
• Conduct a clone town or high street identity survey by classifying businesses, identifying independent and chain retailers, and judging the extent of homogenisation.
• Evaluate qualitative and quantitative sources by distinguishing accuracy, reliability, objectivity and subjectivity, and by explaining the strengths and limitations of each source type.
• Construct comparative local and contrasting place studies by using both qualitative and quantitative evidence from the past and present to explain lived experience and either demographic and cultural change or economic change and social inequalities.