EXAMINING PLACE ATTACHMENT TO THE GREAT LAKES A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Michael David Dunbar August, 2010 Thesis written by Michael David Dunbar B.A., Kent State University, 2009 M.A., Kent State University, 2010 Approved by ____________________________________, David H. Kaplan, Advisor ____________________________________, Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, Chair, Department of Geography ____________________________________, John R. D. Stalvey, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences ii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures…………………………………………………………………….……………....iv List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………..vi Acknowledgements………...……………………...…………………..…………………..….…vii Chapter I. Introduction…………………………………………………..........................................1 II. Place Attachment and the Great Lakes……………….…………………..……………5 III. Methodology and Analysis………………………………………………………..…32 IV. Policy……………………………………………………………………………..….54 V. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………....74 Sources……………………………………………………………………………………..…….78 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figures 1. Regional expressions of attachment……………………………………………………...11 2. Great Lakes states………………………………………………………………………..14 3. Mono Lake, California…………………………………………………………………...21 4. Protesting Desalination…………………………………………………………………..28 5. Great Lakes map………………………………………………………………………...34 6. Claiming natural resources……………………………………………………………....40 7. Measuring the level of value of the Great Lakes………………………………….……..41 8. Measuring the level of value of the Great Lakes by age…………………………….…..42 9. Frequency of visits to the Great Lakes measured against value…………………….…...44 10. Role of the Great Lakes in quality of life………………………………………………..45 11. Years of residency measured against level of attachment……………………………….46 12. Prospect of sharing water in exchange for income……………………………………....47 13. Prospect of sharing water internationally………………………………………………..48 14. Knowledge of origin of community’s water supply……………………………………..49 15. Quality of life affected by diminished Great Lakes……………………………………..50 16. Income measured against value place on the Great Lakes……..………………………..51 17. Income measured again quality of life…………………………………………………..52 18. Opposition against privatization of water…………………………………………….…57 19. Map of the Colorado River…….………………………………………………………..59 iv 20. City of Akron Water Works…………………………………………………………...…61 21. Sentimental value tied to the Great Lakes measured against the Compact……………...63 22. Responsibility of protecting freshwater………………………………………………….64 23. Billboard from Michigan protesting water diversion…………………………………....69 v LIST OF TABLES Tables 1. Survey results compared to 2000 US Census results for Akron, Ohio…………………..39 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to sincerely thank the best mentor I could have asked for, Professor David Kaplan. Thank you for never tiring of my endless questions. Thank you to my other committee members, Thomas Schmidlin and Becky Parylak, for your feedback, guidance and support. Sincere thanks are owed to the Ohio Lake Erie Commission for providing me with an endorsement letter. The Commissions endorsement certainly had a positive effect on my survey responses. I would also like to thank my friends and family for their words of encouragement, especially my sister, Julia Lam. Finally, I would like to give a very special thanks to Scott Sheridan, for his unwavering belief in my abilities, and that this was something that I could, indeed, accomplish. vii CHAPTER I Introduction Natural resources and the environment are not individual physical entities but rather active systems interconnected and laden with meaning. The biological and physical attributes of such places vary drastically in their significance and are under constant modification by political and social processes. Conservation policies, economic production, personal experiences and community uses are just some examples of processes affecting the natural environment (Cheng et al. 2003). When people express their concerns or interest for the environment, they are actually expressing feelings and meanings that extend beyond the value of their surrounds as a commodity. When values are conveyed, people are legitimizing the social and political processes that shape specific places (Cheng et al. 2003). Our natural resources, and especially water, are part of our daily lives. The majority of the population takes such resources for granted and it takes actions such as the threat of diminishing those resources to bring them into our collective consciousness. The purpose of this research is an attempt to use a sample of the Great Lakes Region’s population to measure their place attachment to one of their most precious natural resource. The results from this survey may be used when creating legislation to explain the opinions of constituents when the commodity approach fails. It is my hypothesis that 1 2 the residents of the eight Great Lakes states place a much greater meaning on the Great Lakes than just for the freshwater they use. In the Great Lakes Region a Canadian company, the NOVA Group, was the catalyst for bringing the Great Lakes as a natural resource into the consciousness of so many residents in the region. By applying for and ultimately receiving Canadian federal governmental approval to export freshwater to Asia, the NOVA Group proved to legislators and residents that our greatest resource was not protected from internal pressures, and certainly not from external pressures. The Great Lakes are of paramount importance to the region bearing the same name, however, before the 1990’s, they were taken for granted to the point where there was only minimal legislation to protect them from water diversion for future generations. The NOVA Group is to be thanked in my opinion, because without their much publicized entrepreneurial attitude towards the Great Lakes, they would not be legalized protected today. There are two very different approaches to the same natural resource that continue to cause tensions regarding the Great Lakes and many other natural resources. Local or regional residents often perceive the natural resource in their environment as something they can claim as well as having some degree of emotional attachment. Residents further away view that very same natural resource as something to be used, consumed and exploited without a regard for the emotional attachment placed on it by the local population. Viewing a resource as a commodity versus something that carries emotional 3 meaning is a cause for a great deal of tension when deciding who has the right to make decision regarding our precious natural resources. The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Compact (Compact) was created to exclaim to others that may view the Great Lakes as a commodity that they are more than freshwater to the region. The Great Lakes signify many things to the region such as life, recreation, economy, identity and most importantly an emotional bond laden with memories for local residents. Although the eight Great Lakes states took years to come to a final agreement, it is not a coincidence that the Compact was signed into law before 2010. It is estimated that after the 2010 US Census the water needy states which include places such as Texas and California, will for the first time, have more electoral votes than the Great Lakes Region. There have already been threats of creating a national water policy to share the Great Lakes freshwater with western states that have growing populations and dwindling water supplies, so there was certainly the motivation to sign the Compact into law. This thesis contains a total of five chapters. After the introduction, the second chapter discusses sense of place and in particular the place attachment construct. Chapter two takes an in-depth look at place attachment research and the Great Lakes as a conduit for the region’s emotional bonds. Chapter three explains how, where and why this study was conducted followed by the methods used. Also in the third chapter are the results of the survey and discussions of their significance. The fourth chapter details policies implemented to protect a natural resource such as freshwater and the processes to create such legislation. There are also results of this research that relate to policies created to 4 protect the Great Lakes. The fifth chapter of this research, the conclusion, is where the different aspects of this thesis are summarized. CHAPTER II Place Attachment and the Great Lakes Place There is nothing more intrinsic to humanistic geography than place and space (Tuan 1979). For over two thousand years geographers have been describing and considering issues of place (Relph 1997). The connection between people and place is very difficult to homogeneously define given that such connections vary over time and by place. Places are more than just physical backdrops for our daily actions; they help us find meaning and order in the world. Place meanings encompass tangible and intangible values which may include elements of beauty, spirituality, belonging or attachment. When speaking of “home”, people may be referring to either the physical structure or their social relationships and sentimental experiences (Cheng et al. 2003) Different scales of place exist and can range from being a region large enough to support a livelihood, to a place as small as the bed you sleep in at night. Individuals everywhere regard their homeland as the center of the world. In most instances, destruction