Sense of place and the city: the case of non-native residents in Lisbon

Abstract

When immigrants move to a new city, they tend to develop distinct relationships with the urban landscape, which in turn becomes the new setting of their routine-basedactivities that evolve over time. Previous works in environmental psychology have quantitativelyexamined non-native residents’ development of sense of place towards their newenvironment. In this paper, we introduce the spatial perspective into studying the sense ofplace experienced by non-natives in an urban context. We study the person-place bonds,relationships, and feelings cultivated by non-native residents living in the city of Lisbon(Portugal) through an online map-based survey. Then, we carried out spatial analysisaimed at distinguishing and visualizing the different facets of sense of place developed bytwo participant groups: short-term residents and long-term residents. Results showed thatwhile short-term residents reported bonds with places, long-term residents’ senses of placewere more intense and broader throughout the city. The correlations, associations, andrelationships between participant groups and the dimensions of sense of place allowed usto observe features and patterns that were previously described in the literature, althoughadding the spatial lenses can potentially provide better insights for urban planning, communitydevelopment, and inclusive policies