Per Gustafson from Uppsala University, has published the chapter: “Mobility and Territorial Belonging” in Environment and Behavior, Volume 41 Number 4, July 2009 490-508, © 2009 SAGEPublications. To Gustafson, the relationship between mobility and belonging is a matter of territorial scale. The study has been conducted in Sweden using a questionnaire related to work travel and its implications on the sense of belonging of respondents.

excerpt:

Daily commuting times greater than 1 hr were associated with lower levels of local and regional belonging, but had no significant relationship with belonging on higher territorial levels. These results are in accordance with claims made by Putnam (2000) and others about the negative effects of commuting on local communities, while giving no support to the suggestion that journeys away may increase one’s sense of local belonging (Case, 1996).

Why blogging this? Because my research has addressed a related issue… how neo-nomads recreate a sense of belonging when always on the move? They did so using digital technologies as a way to create a cushioned space. Strenghtening a sense of belonging to places has a great impact on the way you care about the building environment, you participate to the life of the city, retain knowledge, etc.