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Applied Geography

The concept of “place” links people to their environment and is foundational to disciplines such as geography, environmental psychology, and urban studies. With growth in geographic information systems (GIS) in the 1990s, research began to operationalize place concepts using GIS to better inform land use decisions. After two decades, participatory mapping has emerged as an important method to identify place values. This article summarizes lessons from empirical research completed in diverse social and geographic contexts. Specifically, we find that mapped place values: (1) are best understood as relationship values, (2) reflect participant spatial/geographic discounting, (3) are closely related to place attachment and “sense of place” concepts, (4) are correlated with participant attitudes and preferences toward land use, (5) are predictive of land use conflict, (6) are associated with physical landscape features, (7) are generally stable over time, (8) are valid at multiple geographic scales, (9) exhibit greater similarity than differences across geographic areas and populations, and (10) show little evidence of actually influencing land use decisions. Despite research validity and the potential to improve social acceptability of land use decisions, place values will have limited social impact without elevating the importance of broader public participation in current socio-political systems.

Mapping place values: 10 lessons from two decades of public participation GIS empirical research