Residents’ sense of place and landscape perceptions at the rural–urban interface

Rural residents have different expectations concerning what the rural landscape should be like and what it should be used for. This is especially the case at the rural–urban interface, where the characteristics of rural and urban landscapes have become blurred. In this article, the concept of sense of place is used to explore the relationship between humans and landscape at the rural–urban fringe. Based on a quantitative survey data set, this article examines how the landscape perceptions of local residents can be understood from the basis of their sense of place in Nurmijärvi, a municipality located close to the Helsinki Metropolitan Area in southern Finland. A factor analysis revealed four clusters: Socially connected, Weak bonds, Roots and resources and Committed to place. The clusters differed by their socio-economic profiles as well as their sense of place. The Roots and resources cluster differed most of the other clusters, but in general the differences between the clusters in general landscape perceptions were relatively small. Although a strong sense of place is often assumed to lead to care of place, the willingness to contribute to the landscape did not differ significantly between the clusters. In addition the study revealed the existence of two different approaches to landscape in the rural–urban interface: landscape as a scenery and landscape as a dwelling place.

► The connections between sense of place, landscape perceptions at rural - urban fringe were examined.
► Multidimensionality of sense of place was expressed by a mixture of seven components.
► Four sense of place clusters of local residents with different landscape perceptions were identified.
► Landscape is perceived either as a scenery or as a dwelling place.