Coastal Towns in Transition: Local Perceptions of Landscape Change

199 Pages·2010·12.91 MB·English

by  Raymond James Green (eds.)

Coastal Towns in Transition:
Local Perceptions of Landscape Change
Coastal Towns in Transition:
Local Perceptions
of Landscape Change
Raymond James Green
Faculty of Architecture,
Building and Planning
The University of Melbourne
Parkville, Victoria 3010
Australia
Assoc. Prof. Raymond James Green
The University of Melbourne
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
Parkville VIC 3010
Australia
[email protected]
Co-published by Springer Science+Business Media B.V., Dordrecht, The Netherlands
and CSIRO PUBLISHING, Collingwood, Vic., Australia
Sold and distributed:
In the Americas, Europe and Rest of the World excluding Australia and New Zealand
by Springer Science+Business Media B.V., with ISBN 978-1-4020-6886-7
springer.com
In Australia and New Zealand by CSIRO PUBLISHING, with ISBN 978-0-643-09533-5
www.publish.csiro.au
ISBN 978-1-4020-6886-7 e-ISBN 978-1-4020-6887-4
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6887-4
Springer Dordrecht New York Heidelberg London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009935336
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without
written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for
the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser
of the work.
Printed on acid-free paper
Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................1
1.1 The Plight of Coastal Towns ...............................................1
1.1.1 Population shifts toward coastal areas .................................2
1.1.2 The ‘sea-change phenomenon’ ............................................3
1.1.3 Tourism ...............................................................................4
1.1.4 Transformation in place character .......................................6
1.2 Community Responses ........................................................7
1.3 Conserving Place Character ................................................8
1.4 Sustainable Development ..................................................12
Chapter 2: Notions of Place Character ....................................................13
2.1 What Is Place Character? ..................................................13
2.1.1 Placelessness .....................................................................15
2.1.2 Place attachment................................................................15
2.1.3 Special places ....................................................................17
2.2 Dimensions of Place Character .........................................18
2.2.1 Environmental aesthetics ...................................................19
2.2.2 Natural landscapes ............................................................20
2.2.3 A social dimension ............................................................27
2.2.4 Change and a temporal dimension ....................................28
2.2.5 Distinctiveness and uniqueness of place ...........................30
2.2.6 Symbolic meaning .............................................................31
2.2.7 Emotional responses to the environment ..........................32
2.2.8 The home environment ......................................................33
vi Table of Contents
2.2.9 Neighborhood environments .............................................34
2.3 The Validity of Theoretical Propositions ...........................35
Chapter 3: Methodological Considerations.............................................37
3.1 Perceptions of Environmental Quality ..............................37
3.1.1 Involving the public in assessing place character .............38
3.1.2 Methodological approaches ..............................................39
3.2 Assessing Perceptions of Place Character .........................47
3.2.1 A town’s sacred structure ..................................................47
3.2.2 A coastal town’s ‘special’ image .......................................49
3.2.3 Neighborhood image congruity ........................................50
3.2.4 Community sense of place in the aftermath
of a natural disaster ...........................................................50
3.2.5 Community perceptions of ‘town character’
in a coastal tourist town .....................................................51
3.2.6 Scenic and town character assessment
in a sub-tropical coastal town ............................................52
3.3 Studies Along Australia’s Great Ocean Road ....................54
3.3.1 Study area towns ...............................................................54
3.3.2 Data collection methods ....................................................64
3.3.3 Data analysis .....................................................................71
3.3.4 Respondents ......................................................................76
3.3.5 Assessing the methods ......................................................78
Chapter 4: Community Perceptions of Place Character ..........................79
4.1 Introduction .......................................................................79
4.2 Place Character Features ...................................................81
4.2.1 Built features rated incompatible with town character ......88
4.2.2 Built features rated compatible with town character .........89
4.2.3 Natural features ...............................................................101
4.3 Categorization of Character Features ..............................119
4.4 Neighborhood Character .................................................127
4.5 Conclusions .....................................................................129
Table of Contents vii
Chapter 5: Conserving Town Character ................................................135
5.1 Introduction .....................................................................135
5.2 Examples .........................................................................135
5.2.1 United Kingdom ..............................................................135
5.2.2 North America and Mexico .............................................144
5.2.3 New Zealand ...................................................................149
5.3 Summary .........................................................................149
Chapter 6: Facing Future Challenges ....................................................151
6.1 Assessing and Managing Responses to Change..............151
6.1.1 Identifi cation and assessment of town
character zones ................................................................152
6.1.2 Monitoring town character over time ..............................152
6.1.3 Assessing the impact of proposed changes
on place character ............................................................153
6.1.4 Assessing the effectiveness of planning controls ............154
6.2 Changing Place Character in the Face
of Climate Change ..........................................................155
Acknowledgements The research reported in Chapters 3 and 4 was made possible through a
‘Discovery Project’ grant from the Australian Research Council entitled
‘Involving local communities in defi ning town character in Victorian coastal
towns’ (2003–2005). The University of Melbourne provided supplementary
First of all, I want to express my gratitude to the members of the various
funds for a project entitled ‘The impact of tourism development in Victo-
Great Ocean Road communities who participated in this research. I would
rian coastal towns: A comparative analysis of resident perceptions of envi-
especially like to thank my partner, Elahna Green, a very talented photog-
ronmental change’. The Surf Coast Shire Council also provided support.
rapher and landscape architect, who assisted me throughout the research
And fi nally, I want to thank Dame Elisabeth Murdock who supplied funds
by conducting field photography, helping to analyze vast amounts of data,
to the Landscape Architecture program at the University of Melbourne to
providing insightful suggestions during interpretation of the results, pre-
support research into issues relevant to the profession of landscape archi-
paring many of the illustrations used in this publication and generally
tecture, some of which were used for the research presented here, and for
being a wonderful companion.
her generous contributions over the years to so many worthy causes.
Preface living in several Australian coastal towns perceive the character of their
towns and how recent changes are impacting on that character. Members
of these various communities were involved in all stages of the research
process: in helping to select landscape features they felt were important
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
to their perceptions of local character and even in helping determine how
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
these features would be photographically documented for use as stimuli in
There is a society, where none intrudes,
these studies. This approach assumes that members of the user public are
By the deep sea, and music in its roar.
the true experts when it comes to assessing such an inherently experiential
Lord Byron – Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
phenomenon as town character, based on the fact that they are the ones
who experience their local surroundings on a regular basis and will be
Coastal areas around the world are witnessing dramatic changes as a most sensitive to environmental changes that impact on the character of
consequence of development associated with tourism and what, in Aus- these places. This is in stark contrast to the more typical approach used in
tralia, has been referred to as the ‘sea change phenomenon’ – affluent conducting such ‘character studies’, which are typically based solely on
urbanites moving to coastal areas seeking a relaxed lifestyle in scenic and the opinion of planning and design experts.
natural surroundings (Burnley and Murphy 2004). In response to these
changes, people living in destination communities complain that the val- In comparing the results of the research across the various study area towns, a
ued ‘character’ of their towns and/or individual neighborhoods is being remarkably consistent pattern was revealed in that the same types of features
lost or degraded. The major catalyst for this seems to be replacement of perceived to be important to local place-character were identifi ed in each
smaller, older, traditional buildings with out of scale and standardized of the towns. The results identifi ed defi nite typologies of character-defi ning
forms of architecture that people feel are ‘out-of-character’. In far too elements. There was also a remarkable consistency in terms of how people
many instances this also results in the destruction of natural environments assessed these features with respect to compatibility with the character of
that is a consequence of over development, inappropriately sited build- their towns and individual neighborhoods. Theoretical insights provided by
ings, planning regulations that do not adequately protect the natural envi- the results on place character, sense of place and related concepts, should be
ronment and ill-conceived landscape design actions. The upshot of these of interest to scholars working in a wide range of social science, environmen-
changes is that the locally unique constellation of landscape features that tal management, planning and design, tourism and other relevant fi elds, with
have traditionally defined the character of many coastal towns is slowly, respect to understanding how people conceptualize the character of coastal
but surely, being eroded and replaced by one of global uniformity in the environments. The primary aim was, however, to demonstrate the use of an
built environment and a degraded natural environment. innovative methodological approach for understanding community percep-
tions of place-character that can guide planning decision making associated
This book explores how ordinary people living in small coastal towns con- with conservation of town character. These methods should be of particular
ceptualize place-character within the context of their everyday surround- interest to planners, landscape architects, architects, government decision-
ings. It does this by presenting a body of research, undertaken over a 4-year makers and others who have been grappling with how to consciously manage
period and involving close to 2,000 respondents, that explored how people landscape change to conserve valued expressions of local character.
xii Preface
The book contains a total of six chapters. Chapter 1 provides a discussion character. Chapter 4 is devoted entirely to presenting the results of these
about how coastal areas are changing due to a range of forces and how studies. Chapter 5 gives some examples of community initiatives, land
as a result the distinctive character that has traditionally defi ned many conservation groups and government planning bodies, in various places
coastal towns is being eroded, often to the dismay of local residents and around the world, that have implemented strategies for conserving coastal
visitors of these places. Chapter 2 reviews the notion of place-character town character. Chapter 6 is a discussion about strategies for monitoring
and associated concepts of sense of place, spirit of place, genius loci, town character over time, assessing community perceptions of proposed
place-attachment and place-identity from a theoretical perspective. Chap- development in term of its impact on place character and a perceptually
ter 3 is devoted to methodological issues associated with assessing public based approach for testing the effectiveness of planning controls aimed
perceptions of environmental quality and place-character and also reports at conserving place character. This chapter ends with a discussion about
on the methods used in conducting a series of studies that explored how future challenges facing coastal areas with respect to climate change, and
residents and homeowners in several coastal towns located along Aus- implications of these changes with regard to conserving valued place
tralia’s Great Ocean Road perceive town character and changes in local character in these settings.