FEELING TOWNS

This project draws on the findings of the our 2021 AHRC scoping project Towns and the Cultural Economies of Recovery (TCER). It brings together a community of practice from a range of sectors, communities and geographies in order to better understand and evidence the correlation between place attachment (understood as the emotional bond between people and place) and the health of local cultural ecologies. Responding to the need established from our partner-based research, we will co-produce evaluative metrics for understanding pride and place.

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The project has three key aims:

1. To creatively and collectively explore methods and metrics of civic pride and place attachment monitoring, evaluating and reporting. We understand this to be an opportunity to share the value and range of qualitative methods and metrics which can complement the more dominant econometric approaches towards culture, regeneration and local economies.

2. To cooperatively work across the multiple policy realms engaging with the ‘levelling up’ agenda in towns, in order to share findings and influence policy. 

3. To produce new, shared understandings of the complex roles that pride and place attachment play in local government regeneration strategies. 

 

This project brings together SIAH research specialists with policymakers and practitioners from Historic England, Rural Media (Herefordshire), Darlington Borough Council, and Southampton City Council.

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MEET THE TEAM