Urban Character and Identity: An Exploration of the Crisis of Identity in Today's Cities.

Introduction

Any time the debate of identity is mentioned, Space always has a place. One challenge experienced in today's cities is urban character and the dimension of identity in social participation, solidarity, and reduced incentives for the residents to meet their population goals (Choi 75). The identification of crisis could be under the authentication attempts or the identity concept in both modern and traditional architecture of today’s password and deals over man’s identity. The paper will focus more on identity and Space in the idea of today's modern and traditional architecture and how it can achieve the human-self-understanding.

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When the sense of place is meant to stand apart and remain, individual, it will continue to belong to the collection. Space and place are vital factors that can provide identification. Although many studies have shown that a person's identity is entangled with the retroactive vision, it needs time to benefit from the individual's collective needs as a citizen of the city (Choi 79). In this case, both places portray different scales. It is more sensible for a person to have a site that can be their home, neighborhood, bedroom, country, or city.

The only way people will be considered good citizens of their implications and place mainly for the composition of a home is to direct their relation to subjective and objective needs (Choi 82). This claim is to see whether it fits the needs of the space element ready for durability and consistency. Through the creation of the location identity, the features are considered by the citizens because it makes them move.

According to Kalandides, the human forces consist of large troops that include interwoven lessons to teach a man how the house opens their identity (p. 29). The same author has also discovered that the ultimate goal of authentic living is a symbol that shows that the accommodation of humans in a house confirms their identity. Kalandides also added that the only way people belong to places is to identify themselves on a large scale (city, region, and nation) and small size (room, house, workplace, and neighborhood) (p. 32).

Identity

Identity is a fundamental and essential anthropological issue that was remarked by various intellectuals and scholars in the past (Shumener). The process of identification is not findable stuff because it cannot be made, the nature of its existence and because it is not conscious. Searching for identity makes a person more sensitive, particularly about their characters, society, and environment.

Many intellectuals in various fields have theorized and discussed a lot about the identity theory and how they are opposite of each other when it comes to the extent of ambiguity and complexity in the identity topic (Shumener). It is because of this reason that the identity concept has become an impossible and secure subject. Another reason is that the meaning used is apparent and sensible because the more the topic is discussed, the more it becomes difficult and obscurant.

Identity and Lifestyle

As a start, it is clear to make everyone understand that housing is a fulfillment means that gives way for human activity to take place. According to Lawson, when people's social lives become an open out in the late modernity, then the current project of lifestyle choices and self becomes the significant feature of the life of the individual (p. 57). It is crucial to understand that housing contributes to the project and the interest of a person’s life.

The author also clarifies that it is through this way that people project themselves to others to create their identity (Lawson 59). Most social constructionists argue that the only way identity can be forged through social interactions. Most people are judged based on the way they act towards others and how they react with people. Therefore individual identity is embodied with selfhood and not by being isolated from society.

People are variable and unique, but selfhood is generated through social construction in the socialization process and social interaction within the individuals to redefine themselves and the people around them (Lawson 59). The only way to understand the emerges of identity is through simultaneous practices, especially if its synthesis has an external and internal definition concerning the individual’s characters.

Identity is an interactive product that embodies people. Lawson also showed the importance of chronicle age by categorizing children and adults (p. 63). The author wrote about the status of the old as the ‘mask of ageing’ based on body appearance and how it corresponds with their characters when compared to their early life. The survey also shows that a middle-aged man can represent himself, but his physical body will intervene with the face-to-face, unmediated encounters.

Identity can also be both plural and singular. Different personalities can be adopted in different people and in different situations. A suitable example can be seen between a father and son and how they interact with the daughters and mother. In this sense, it is straightforward to forge a person's overall view under such perceptions (Lawson 68). Identity revolves around differentiating people from forming the knowledge of their character.

Identity is also about sharing the same features with others develop a sense of belonging through similarities. When someone belongs to a specific category, they can be associated with social interaction and construction (Lawson 73). For instance, fathers are mature and responsible while sons are loving and dutiful. The only way a person’s project relates to structural factors in behavior and expectations is through the categorical identity.

However, such meanings and categories are changed or reproduced through individual interactions. Then the identification process will be determined by the reflexivity of individuals. However, such communications are only facilitated through a person’s choice through categorical identities forged through authority and power relations to frame such interactions.

Presence and Place

A place is a space that consists of overlaid meaning by group or individuals. Any site is sensed on the chiaroscuro settings, rituals, landscape, routine and personal experience concerning the home and the surrounding environment (Bulu 157). Anyone that intends to create a place challenges the virtual reality. As known, technology does not develop areas but can be used to create real situations. The ability to re-create actual location is pleasing compared to the –re-creation of fragile or ancient sites. Making such experiences concerning the housebound affirms that the application strands lie in the re-creation of workplaces or public buildings for training.

Phenomenological Perspectives: Tuan and Relph

The earliest monograph placelessness and place informed by observations, introspection, and other writing is the nature of the area. According to Relph, place identity is derived from three broad dimensions that constitute the physical settings meanings, and activities (p.16). Various moments also suggest that even though the divisions are apparent, they have one fundamental.

A suitable example is the possibilities of visualizing a town that consists of physical objects and buildings, as seen on the air photographs (Relph 18). An objective observer will state that people’s activities within the physical context will observe their movements similar to how entomologists keep ants moving in regular patterns while consuming objects.

However, any individual experiencing such activities and buildings see them as ugly or beautiful, hindrances or useful, alienating, and enjoyable. Such comments can only be observed on Relph’s work when he wrote about the place identity and how the subtle aspect belongs to the sense of place (Relph 21). According to Relph, the physical setting is arguable because of the three-dimension associated with the attributes of the beautiful and ugly subjective (p.29).

Place

Any space organized and set as a place is thought to have bounded settings where identity and social relations are constituted. Even though such situations could be officially recognized as a perceptual identity or organized in free sites, they also intersect in social meanings, associations, and collective memory (Bulu 161). This makes the concept of a place to have a particular uniqueness of the place-based identities contested with theories of increasing globalization and the area that is less perceived.

Many positivists see the place as a subjective area that is defined, particular, and existential even though it is considered more subject to scientific law and abstract phenomenon. The concept of place is derived from phenomenology because people's attachment to specific locations symbolizes the quality of an area linked with attitudes and events to create a fused environment (Bulu 169). The idea was also contrasted with the concern of experienced richness of a place with detached sterility of the space concept.

The place is also an emotional area bounded as a dwelling place to a group or individual that portrays strong, loving relationships to derive their identity. Therefore a site can be an urban space portion that defines the territorial meaning. Outside Space consists of a vast area where a group or an individual gains knowledge but lacks the home feeling because of the inexistence of affectionate feelings.

Ways in which people identify a place differ from one person to the other. Most humanistic surveys have shown that individuals are associated with a home when there are security and safety (Bulu 172). Any place someone lives and has forced solidarity and social pressure is seen as suffocating. When compared to the latter, Space should be dissolute and free. In such situations, the threats and dangers of the unknown area are not valid.

Place Identity and Place Attachment

Many places are developed by meaning, activity, and physical form. In this case, the implication is associated with a person’s internal social and psychological procedures to generate their perception (Bernardo & Palma-Oliveira 168). As known, the affective understanding is derived from the mental process. However, since it is rooted in the settings, the determination of the identity of the place is not by physical components but also the association and meaning developed between places and people.

Simultaneously the characteristics of culture meld with a person’s functional needs and perception influence the place identity. The authors also argue that when such matters are not addressed in an integrated manner, they form a framework or assessment that defines the character and place as inadequate (Bernardo & Palma-Oliveira 172). Place attachment becomes the affective link or bond development between an individual, people, and specific situations. The place attachment also reflects the functional bonding between places and people known as place dependence.

Space is also developed when there is a well-definition of the place significant by the users and the ability to fulfill their functional needs to support the behavioral goals instead of other alternatives. Attachment and meaning affect the image-ability because of the influence of experience and culture in an area. Space also supports continuity by influencing people’s identity of both social, cultural values, and life.