A geographer's perspective on famine in the Horn of Africa

Here's an excellent column on famine in the Horn of Africa by geographer Bill Moseley, an expert on development and environmental change in Africa. For students taking Geography 125, this is an eloquent, brief, and readable analysis that illustrates how a political ecology perspective differs from dominant, mainstream perspectives on food, hunger, and agriculture (the issues in Chapter 8 of your textbook).

The Geography of Google Street View

I don't get to take road trips as often as I'd like, so I was excited to see that, thanks to Google Maps Street View, I can travel to a lot of places via "virtual road trip." In some ways the world geography of coverage - i.e., the places that are visible via Google Maps Street View - is rather predictable: I suspect there would be a fairly strong correlation between this map and a world map of countries by GDP (Gross Domestic Product, a commonly used indicator of wealth and economic productivity) per capita. So it's no surprise that the most heavily mapped include North America, Western Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Singapore, and Japan. It's also not too surprising to see that South Africa is the best covered country in Africa.

But there are surprises - on the one hand, not much of Germany, Belgium, Austria, or Portugal have Street View available yet; I'd be curious to know why. (I'm also disappointed that I can't do a virtual road trip through Iceland yet...) And why so little coverage in South America (outside of the major population centers along the Brazilian coast) and almost none in India or China?

On the other hand, there is pretty good coverage in Romania and Czechia... why these two and not other Eastern European countries? I was also pleased to discover that I could use this to visit the Canary Islands and a tiny smidgen of Antarctica.

Upcoming study of food deserts in Milwaukee

Here's an upcoming study on food deserts in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit - hey, how did UW-Madison land this, and not UWM?

Segregation in Milwaukee

Is Milwaukee the most segregated city in the US? One recent study using the dissimilarity index found that it is, according to this Salon article.

But note that the dissimilarity index is not the only measure of segregation, and it has its critics. To learn a little about some of these critics - and to find many more useful links - check out this recent Politifact Wisconsin article.

UWM wetland grant

Here's a good video about a grant to restore a wetlands site along the Kinnickinnic River in Milwaukee - the work of UWM Freshwater Sciences grad students.

Spatial justice: the non-profit

Here's a link to a non-profit organization in Seattle (I think) "whose mission is to assist other non-profits, community groups and NGO’s in utilizing data mapping, GIS, GPS, and spatial analysis to describe, measure and analyze issues of possible spatial inequality and injustice."

For students interested in using GIS to address justice issues (whether for a class project or beyond), this may be a useful site. If you're in Geography 564, you should take a look at the organization's approach to conceptualizing "spatial justice," here in the Toolbox section. I'm pretty sure that this is "early" David Harvey they are quoting here... They also quote geographer David Smith, whose book Geography and Social Justice is essential reading for graduate students interested in the topic.

What does "local" mean?

Recently in Geography 564 we discussed Born and Purcell's "avoiding the local trap", which discusses the recent glorification of "local" food and agriculture as more sustainable, more just, and well, just plain better. This isn't just an academic argument, as this recent news article makes clear. (If the link doesn't work, try googling Jalonick and local - the author's name is Mary Clare Jalonick.

If you're interested in reading more critiques of the "local," here are some other links for you to check out:

- Here's a blog post that also contains the text of a 2010 New York times article.
- And here's a description of a 2008 academic article on buying local.

Political change in Milwaukee County

Here's a fascinating map showing political change in Milwaukee County since 1966 (and here's an accompanying table).

Hobby idea: Earthquake monitoring

Wonder where and when the last earthquake took place? And what its magnitude was?

Wonder no more.

Housing discrimination in Waukesha County?

For those of you interested in the ongoing history of residential segregation in the Milwaukee metro area, you might want to check out this news story about a discrimination complaint filed in Waukesha.

An excerpt:

"Milwaukee, WI – The Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council (MMFHC) has filed a complaint with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) alleging that Waukesha County has engaged in illegal housing discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin, and that the County has violated HUD’s mandate to affirmatively further fair housing."

Subsistence fish consumption and environmental justice in Wisconsin

This one's part of a series for students in Geography 564: Urban Environmental Change and Social Justice.

Among other things, President Clinton's Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice directs federal agencies to research and address subsistence consumption of fish and wildlife (see Section 4-4). Here in Wisconsin, there are a number of communities that rely heavily on subsistence fishing, including Hmong and other southeastern Asian communities, American Indian communities, and low-income inner-city communities. As we'll see in some of our readings, subsistence fishing may put these populations at higher risk of exposure to toxic contamination in our lakes and waterways. How are the social and environmental justice dimensions of this issue being addressed in Wisconsin?

Here are a few links you should check to get started:

- This has been an important issue along the Fox River near Green Bay, the site of a major cleanup operation that has been ongoing for years. Take a look here and here and here, for instance. For more on the Fox River site in general, you can look here.

- This is also an issue at the Sheboygan River Superfund site - here's a video to check out.

- Here at UWM, the Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center has made this area of research a priority - take a look around this site (see, e.g., Michael Carvan and David Petering).

- An organization that has been very active on this issue in Madison is the Madison Environmental Justice Organization.

- These are just starting points - don't forget to google! (And feel free to look at nearby states and cities as well, such as Waukegan and Chicago.)

- And don't forget the EPA - here, for instance.

Parks and environmental justice in Milwaukee

This one's part of a series for students in Geography 564: Urban Environmental Change and Social Justice.

Although the classic environmental justice issue was toxic pollution, access to safe, well-maintained parks has become increasingly salient as an environmental justice issue. Do different groups in the city have better or worse access to parks - and what kinds of parks? What is the status of these parks? We'll consider these issues in readings later in the semester.

Here are some resources to help you get started thinking about this here in Milwaukee:

- A great place to start is a 2002 study by Milwaukee's Public Policy Forum, which will give you a sense of the variations among parks at the turn of the millennium.

- A more recent Public Policy Forum study (2008) also addresses Milwaukee's parks briefly, and it's probably worth a look.

- One possible case study to examine in Milwaukee is Johnsons Park (also here) which has partnered with the Center for Resilient Cities.

- You might also want to look at the Urban Ecology Center, which now operates in Riverside Park and Washington Park.

- A couple of organizations to know about in Milwaukee are Preserve Our Parks and The Park People. And of course, don't forget Milwaukee County Parks itself.

Urban agriculture and food security in Milwaukee

This is a hot topic right now, and there are numerous resources on the web. One of the best places to start is the web site for Growing Power, which you should take the time to explore. You can also check out their blog.

But Growing Power isn't the only game in town. Although this is a little out of date now, the Milwaukee Urban Agriculture Network site is a good source of links and background - another good one to explore. Walnut Way Conservation Corp is also very active in the area of urban agriculture, so make sure to pay their site a visit too.

Some questions to consider: in what ways are these organizations presenting urban agriculture as a potential solution to social/environmental justice in Milwaukee? What are some obstacles, barriers, critiques, controversies, or challenges they face?

The Kinnickinnic River Project

This one's part of a series for students in Geography 564: Urban Environmental Change and Social Justice.

The Kinnickinnic River, sometimes called Milwaukee's "forgotten river," runs through a series of neighborhoods on Milwaukee's south side. The river has been altered and damaged by past contamination, as well as by concrete channels put in decades ago to control flooding, and it is currently the focus of a major restoration effort. The question: will this restoration effort address social and environmental justice issues along the river?

Here are a few sources to help you get started (there are clickable links in the first three bullet points):

- The KK River Project of UWM's Great Lakes Water Institute - a lot of useful material here, including links to other good web sites.

- The 16th Street Community Health Center is highly involved in this project, through its Department of Environmental Health. You should look around the web (and talk to them!) to find out more, but you might want to start with the KK River Action Plan.

- MMSD plays the lead role in the current reconstruction of the river. You'll find several relevant documents on its web site linked here.


- Don't forget to Google - e.g., kinnickinnic river environmental justice. (Try others! Don't just stop at that one.) There are several good sites and articles out there.

SEWRPC's Environmental Justice Task Force

This one's part of a series for students in Geography 564: Urban Environmental Change and Social Justice.

A few years ago, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC) created an Environmental Justice Task Force to address concerns about how regional plans (e.g., water supply, transportation, land use, etc.) might adversely affect low-income and minority populations. (President Clinton's Executive Order 12898 requires federal agencies to do this, and since SEWRPC receives funding from the Department of Transportation, it must address environmental justice as well.)

There have been controversies regarding the EJ Task Force's work, particularly with regard to a socio-economic impact analysis of a proposed diversion of Lake Michigan water to the nearby City of Waukesha.

Here are some resources to help you get started (click on the red to get to the web site):

- The EJ Task Force web site: here, you'll find all of the documentation pertaining to the EJ Task Force's activities. You don't have to read all of these documents to get an idea of what the Task Force is up to - I'd recommend focusing on the meeting minutes.

- The EJ Task Force meeting calendar: these meetings are open to the public, and it's pretty easy to get to them on the 15 bus.

- For a critical perspective on the EJ Task Force (from the left) and good summaries of the controversies, check out James Rowen's blog The Political Environment (here's what comes up when you search it for "environmental justice"; you can try out different search terms).

Also make sure to google around. There is plenty of background on the controversy over extending Lake Michigan water to Waukesha available on the Internet, although the sites above will be some of the best sources for considering the relationship between this and social/environmental justice.

Urban farming and inner-city jobs in Milwaukee

Growing Power has attracted national (and even international) attention for its urban agriculture programs in Milwaukee and Chicago. It is an organization that has long sought to connect urban farming with issues of social justice, including food security and unemployment. Here's a recent news article about a proposed new program through which Growing Power would aim to address the latter issue.

Some resources that have helped me write

This post goes out especially to graduate students who are having a hard time with their writing, but also to undergraduates and other faculty members. Producing a thesis, or a dissertation, or a publishable article - or a decent term paper, for that matter - is tough, and one of the reasons for this is that many of us struggle a great deal to develop and maintain good work habits.

I'm a bit of a procrastinator by nature, it seems, but I've been fortunate enough to stumble across some resources that have helped me fight these tendencies and work more productively. I figured I'd share them here.

1. Professors as Writers, by Robert Boice. You don't have to be a professor to benefit from this book, which was probably the single most helpful resource I came across for getting me through the dissertation-writing process. The focus of this book is process, not product, and I can attest to the effectiveness of his tips for overcoming writer's block (which afflicted me severely in September 2005 and January 2006, if I remember correctly) and developing good writing habits.

I found Joan Bolker's Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day, which I received as a gift when I was writing my master's thesis, to be somewhat helpful, but it doesn't stand out in my memory as life-changing in the way that Boice's book does.

2. Getting Things Done, by David Allen. Believe the hype - this is an extremely useful book, even if you don't become a hard-core GTD fanatic. It's not about writing, of course, but there are some basic principles in the book that have helped me tremendously with my writing, as well as with productivity more generally.

For instance: you know how you sometimes get a great idea, and then you forget about it, and it's gone forever? One of Allen's basic concepts is to get "stuff" (of all kinds) out of your head and into some tangible form that you can get access to easily.

The tangible form that I've found the most useful has been the Hipster PDA, introduced to the world by Merlin Mann at 43 Folders (the title comes from Allen's book). Although I do use a conventional PDA daily (yes, I'm stuck in pre-smartphone technology here, but at least it's a good ol' Palm TX, which I've now had for almost 7 years), the simple act of carrying around note cards and jotting things down has revolutionized my life. Well, maybe that's a bit extreme - but the note cards have helped prevent me from "losing" numerous ideas that I would have otherwise lost.

3. Reassembling the Social, by Bruno Latour. OK, a bit of a non sequitur here, perhaps, but this was another one that helped me survive the dissertation process - and not just because I'm into actor-network theory and I shamelessly plug Latour's work at every opportunity. I think all graduate students would benefit from reading at least the chapter on "Writing Risky Accounts" (and indeed, he directs many of his comments in the book toward graduate students). It changed the way I thought about what I was doing, but it also provided considerable reassurance to me to read his description of the foibles, messiness, and inevitable incompleteness of social research (regardless of how we choose to define social).

I should note another book that I frequently recommend, if only because I find myself using the "situational map" so frequently to get my writing and thinking kick-started: Adele Clarke's Situational Analysis. Even if you don't buy the theoretical approach, I'd recommend trying out the practice of mapping. (I'm also eager to try out the software tool Free Mind, recommended by friend and fellow geographer Lee Hachadoorian on his new blog Free City.)

Part of what inspired this post is that the past three days have been some of the most productive I've had in recent months - maybe in recent years - and I feel compelled to give a little shout-out. I will direct this shout-out to the latest book I've found useful: Neil Fiore's The Now Habit. Again, it's not specifically about writing; it's about procrastination more generally. I also doubt that I'll ever use some of the tips in the book.

But I've been trying out his "Unschedule" idea this week, and so far it's working magnificently (knock on wood). The idea resonates nicely with Boice's approach, but the "Unschedule" adds a useful bit of structure to the "brief daily sessions" of writing that Boice advocates. I have to give credit once again to 43 Folders for introducing me to this book, even though Merlin Mann is skeptical of the "Unschedule" idea...

As a coda, I should also plug the book that did more than any other to help me learn to read academic books and articles: How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. None of my students have ever heard of it, it seems, but it's a classic, and it's worth every penny, and everyone should read it, right now.

Embarrassing Confession #1: Or, Why One Should Keep Up With Sports

One of the advantages of living in Milwaukee is that you are spittin' distance from Chicago: about an hour and a half during low traffic times. This means that it's easy, even with two small children, to say, "Hey! Let's go to Chicago this weekend!"

Last fall we found out about the ASTC Passport Program, which gives you free or discounted admission to science museums (mostly in North America, but a few in other parts of the world) if you become a member of any participating museum. And we found out that by joining Discovery World in Milwaukee, we'd qualify for free admission to science museums in Chicago, including the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry. (There's a rule about having to live 90 miles away, as the crow flies; we're just barely beyond that, I think. Or maybe it's that the museums have to be 90 miles apart. Or maybe it's both. The rule is a little confusing, in my opinion.)

So, since the semester still hasn't started, we figured we'd take the boys down for a little museum-going. We settled on the Field, since our younger son Max is very much into dinosaurs, of which the Field has plenty. We spent the afternoon there on Saturday, but we didn't have quite enough time to take in the Gold exhibit, primarily of interest to our older son Baz, who speculated about whether it might be possible to steal some of it. So we decided to return on Sunday morning (we had booked a hotel room not far away).

This is where the title of this post comes in. Had we been following the NFL playoffs more closely (don't worry, we knew that the Packers had beaten the Falcons the night before; we even watched much of the Steelers-Ravens game on the big TV in our restaurant), we would have known that the Bears would be playing at Soldier Field on Sunday afternoon. (If you're unfamiliar with Chicago's lakefront, Soldier Field is across the street from the Field Museum - named after Marshall Field, not Soldier Field.) Needless to say, the traffic was kind of bad. And museum parking was nonexistent.

We cut our losses and drove down to the Museum of Science and Industry, where we didn't have a lot of time to explore (we'd been there a couple of times before anyway) - but there was at least enough time for Max and me to take in the indoor plumbing exhibit. (Why doesn't the museum site provide a link? It's one of the museum's less flashy exhibits, to be sure, but Max and I took great delight in watching the waste water go to the sewer. Granted, this is a time in Max's life in which toilets are of exceptionally great interest.)

So to sum up, my advice:

1) Don't go to the Field Museum when the Bears are playing at home.

2) The ASTC Passport program is a good deal, but don't forget that nothing is truly free in Chicago. It costs money just to get in the city, and that's just the beginning.

3) Make sure to check out the see-through toilet at the Museum of Science and Industry. You won't be disappointed.

Prince of Networks

I think the Christmas gift that I was most excited about receiving this year (except perhaps these) was one of the books I'm currently reading: Graham Harman's Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. This is not only a fabulous, fascinating reading of Latour (a French science and technology studies scholar, but that doesn't quite do him justice: anthropologist? social theorist? philosopher? yes, but...), but I've also already laughed out loud several times, and I'm only on page 53.

To give you a quick taste (out of context, but it doesn't really matter):

"Let's imagine that, in our efforts to counter the dominance of Kant's Copernican Revolution in philosophy, we hire Karl Rove as a consultant. Since Kant has the reputation of a quiet, ascetic seeker after truth, Rove might begin by spreading rumors of moral turpitude. To simplify the tale, let's imagine that the rumors are actually true. In a surprising discovery, Rove's research team uncovers previously suppressed correspondence between Kant and the jailed Marquis de Sade, along with a shocking diary that records midnight deflowerings and Baudelairean hymns to triple-great Satan (Harman 2009, p. 52)."

And that's just the beginning - this is fun reading. If only my academic writing could be half this lively! (Indeed, if only there were more academic writing this fun in general...)

In any case, I may occasionally post about this book, for you philosophical types out there. I'm eager to find out what happens! (i.e., to get to his critique. Back in 2006, I sat in on a great seminar with Bruce Braun at Minnesota, in which we read portions of Latour's Reassembling the Social and Harman's Tool-Being - alas, this book hadn't yet been published, so we could only speculate about what they would say to each other. Now there's a whole blog devoted to the actor-network/Heidegger encounter.)

A short post about parenting

In my introductory post, I mentioned "parenting" as one of the topics about which I'd occasionally blog, so I'll go ahead and start making good on that promise.

The direct inspiration was an article that's evidently all the rage right now, Amy Chua's essay on "tough love" parenting (which I assume is either from or based on her book). If you read the essay, make sure to read the follow-up for crucial context - her style sometimes leaves you wondering whether she's being serious or tongue-in-cheek, so it's useful to find out. And there's no shortage of responses to it: here are responses by Lisa Belkin and Judith Warner.

I liked Warner's observation that what the various parenting systems share in common is the "article of faith" that "parents can have control." While I believe parents should do their best with this incredibly tough job, I'm often having to remind myself that so much of what happens in the development of my children has nothing to do with anything I do. (And sometimes it's useful to reread Philip Larkin's blunt, crude classic "This Be The Verse": a nice cynical reminder that you're destined to fail in some way or another no matter what you do...)

I suppose my philosophy of parenting these days is a kind of pragmatic bricolage. I suspect an astute anthropological observer could probably identify some fundamental patterns in my approach (and I've dabbled in a few "systems"), but I tend to see parenting as a kind of "muddling through," experimenting with various tools that may or may not work from one week to the next.

(An example that pops to mind: last fall I introduced the "Meep Meep" response to insults. Basically, if my brother insults me, I can reply "Meep Meep" in a Road Runner voice, and my brother is then compelled to re-enact Wile E. Coyote's fall into a canyon, using body or voice or both. This worked rather well for a few weeks, until the older brother found a loophole: doing the Wile E. Coyote fall, but landing on the head of his younger brother. Once the younger brother picked up on this violent retort, the "Meep Meep" tool no longer functioned. Insults have once again regained their power. On to a new experiment.)

Other ways you know you're in Wisconsin

1. Kids go to school when it's snowing. Not the case in my hometown of Atlanta this week. I remember being sent home a few times even when it might snow.


















2. State law requires the Packer flag to be flown above the Badger flag. (Both of these are of course tributes to Wisconsin's industrial laborers: the meat packers and the lead miners.)

Something you can only do in the North

As a child, I was a big fan of Charles Schulz's Peanuts. But as someone growing up in the Southeast, I was a bit baffled by the strips showing Snoopy and the kids playing ice hockey outdoors. What are they skating on? How come it's not melting?

Then, ten years ago, I moved to Minneapolis and finally experienced the DIY skating rink phenomenon for the first time. For those of you who grew up in Wisconsin or Minnesota or Toronto or other places in the humid continental/snowy winter climate zone (see the map below, courtesy of Wikipedia), this is just a normal part of growing up - for me, it's still pretty amazing. This is most certainly one of those things that makes Wisconsin and its climatic kindred spirits distinctive as places.

I'm especially in awe of those dedicated souls, like our elementary school principal, who get out there early in the morning on frigid days and make these rinks for us to enjoy. Wisconsin winters provide a good bit to complain about, to be sure, but it would be a shame to see this tradition disappear if certain climate models are accurate.

The view from my Bolton office

In the spirit of livening up the site with a few pictures, I'm taking a break and playing around a bit with my camera. Here's are some of the inspiring views from my office in Bolton. It hasn't been a big day for the solar panels. (Next week maybe I'll photograph and post some of the genuinely inspiring views from the office I get to use this year in Curtin - up there, you can see the lake.)

Geographies of Obesity and Diabetes

A colleague sent this interesting link today - check out these maps of the geographic distribution of obesity and diabetes in the US. You can see how the distribution has changed over time at the state level of resolution; you can also see how distributions vary at the county level within states, as well as across racial/ethnic categories.

It looks like Milwaukee County has higher levels than the state of Wisconsin as a whole. But some of these data are puzzling... why do the numbers seem to drop so quickly when you cross the state line from Nebraska to Colorado, or Illinois to Missouri?

Geothermal in Wisconsin: Who knew?

All right, I'll violate my "self-disclosure" rule by sharing one of my secret fantasies: to build a backyard hot tub that uses no chemicals, doesn't pollute, doesn't contribute greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, requires minimal maintenance, etc. I doubt I'll ever complete this project, since I'm not particularly handy and I don't have a lot of free time, but I'll talk about it occasionally anyway. It's no longer a secret fantasy, after all.

I'm bringing it up now because of an email I received this morning informing me that UW-Oshkosh is going to develop a biogas plant. No, my mind didn't race to the possibility of fueling a hot tub with grass clippings and coffee grounds - although that would be great, wouldn't it? And check it out: Wisconsin leads the US not only in binge drinking, but also in "creating energy from cow manure-using digesters." Tonight I'll dream of a cow-powered hot tub...

In fact, what caught my attention was not the biogas part, but the passing mention that UW-Oshkosh is using a geothermal system to heat its Student Success Center and a new residence hall. If you're like me, you associate geothermal energy with places near mountains, volcanoes, and tectonic plate boundaries more generally - that is, the kinds of places where you find thermal hot springs. (Click on the last link to see a great NOAA map of hot springs in the US. Alas, there are none in or anywhere near Wisconsin.)

But as it turns out, we're now going well beyond our historical range for tapping into geothermal energy - if by that we mean using systems that absorb heat from the ground when it is warmer than the air, rather than just those that use good ol' hot rocks. I'll let the Wisconsin Geothermal Association explain.

OK, so maybe geothermal isn't the best word - here's a long Wikipedia article discussing why - but I like the idea that I can still actively fantasize about having a geothermal hot tub in Milwaukee.

Welcome!

"What the world needs now: one more blog."

Welcome to Place-Sense, which I'm beginning as an experiment in January 2011. My aim with this blog is to share (with the audiences listed below) some of the things I'm interested in. I hope that at least four other people will find them interesting as well.

Here's an introduction to the blog, which I suspect will undergo changes as the blog evolves:

What will you find here?

I'm writing this blog with the following audiences in mind:

1) Students in my geography classes at UW-Milwaukee

Currently, this blog is purely optional reading. Over time, I'm hoping to build up a collection of links, commentaries, and posts that students in my classes (including Introduction to Environmental Geography, Urban Environmental Change and Social Justice, Contemporary Geographic Approaches, and a forthcoming graduate seminar on cities and the environment) may find interesting or useful.

2) Colleagues and students in geography departments, at UWM and beyond

3) Anyone else who might be interested in what I'm up to: friends, strangers, family, kids, desperate gossip columnists, etc.

While I suspect topics germane to geography will dominate here, I also intend to use this blog as a venue for posting about other things that I'm interested in, which may include (for example):

- Music
- Parenting
- Books I'm reading for fun
- Food and beverages
- Fantasy house projects
- Travel (and fantasy travel plans)
- Academic life
- Marginal political movements of the early 20th century
- Etc.

What will you not find here?

Although I'm leaving myself the flexibility to post about a wide variety of topics, there are several things you won't find here, including the following:

- Hyperpartisan political content, manifestos, etc. (I may touch on controversial topics every now and then, but it's not my intent to use this as a political rag)
- Evangelizing
- Tantalizing gossip
- "Adults-only" material
- Scathing personal attacks
- Incitements to criminal activity
- Exciting commercial offers
- Deeply personal, confessional "over-shares"
- Spoilers
- Stuff that could get me fired
- Recaps of Dora the Explorer episodes

What's with "Place-Sense"?

I may change this name at some point, but here are some of the connotations I have in mind.

First, it's meant to evoke the geographic concept of "sense of place." This concept has more than one definition, but it's generally taken to refer to the way we experience, know, interpret, and invest meaning in particular locales. (Among geographers, Yi-Fu Tuan is probably the most famous developer of the concept, but others who have discussed the idea in interesting ways include John Agnew, who characterizes it as one of three primary dimensions of place - along with location and locale - and Doreen Massey, who has theorized the "progressive sense of place.") So one of the ideas here is that my posts will in some way or another discuss my own experiences and reflections about the place known as Milwaukee (where I live), as well as other places I might physically or virtually visit.

But I called it "place-sense" instead of "sense of place," because the content won't be limited to discussions of the geographic concept of "sense of place." The name "place-sense" conjures up other images and ideas for me as well.

One would be simply "making sense of places," which is one of the main activities of geographers, whether or not they use the concept of "sense of place." For instance, many of us analyze how things or people are distributed within a particular place, and how these distributions are related to each other. Others are interested in the processes, forces, and actors that come to create and maintain particular places. Still others are interested in how places are represented, and how these representations circulate (here's an example).

Another set of connotations would be the various phrases that end in "sense," like horse sense, common sense, sixth sense, nonsense, etc. I doubt I'll discuss parapsychology, but I suspect I'll be tempted to post something nonsensical now and then.

Finally, let's face it: the terms "place" and "sense" are both so vague, with so many different meanings, that I figure I can get away with posting just about anything and saying it's somehow related to "place-sense." Maybe I'm wrong, but we'll see how it goes.

In any case, I'll leave it there for now. Welcome to Place-Sense.