STUDY ON CHARACTERISTICS AND FORMATION MECHANISM OF COLLEGE STUDENTS' PLACE ATTACHMENT: BASED ON THE INVESTIGATION OF XIANLIN UNIVERSITY TOWN
XIONG Guo1, ZHANG Min1,2, YAO Lei1, WANG Xia2,3
1. School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China;
2. Research Center of Human Geography, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China;
3. School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Abstract University town has become a new form of China's rapid urban expansion since the year of 2000. As an implantation space, whether there is a positive relationship between University town and college students who living in it primarily would be significant to its development. Place attachment is a positive sentiment based on our spatial cognition, understanding of significance, replication function, and activity participation about one place. It is concluded that place attachment of college students is consisted of three mutually improved dimensions, which are place identity, function dependence and affective attachment. Each dimension has different influence on place attachment. But the generative mechanism of place attachment of college students has its unique characteristics compared with general city dwellers. Mainly because of the half floating and half socialized features of college students, the interaction between college students and locality is temporary and indirect, which is severed intermittently or moved to other place during holidays or after graduation. This paper proposes a bottom-up perspective to assess the construction of university town. Rich and varied festive events, innovative and accessible public space, plenty employment opportunities would help increase college students' place attachment.
2013, Vol. 28 
