Mapping Adolescents’ Sense of Place and Perceptions of Change in an Urban–Rural Transition Area

Landscapes are changing, with rural areas becoming increasingly urbanized. Children and adolescents are underrepresented in the sense-of-place literature. Our study aimed to understand how adolescent residents of a rural–urban transition area perceive and value their urbanizing landscape by examining sense of place and perceptions of landscape change. A Public Participation GIS approach, accompanied by a questionnaire survey, was applied to elicit responses from a sample of 747 students aged 12–18 in Colmenar Viejo, Madrid (Spain). Respondents’ sense of “self-in-place” or home range was small, around 1 km, although valued places were identified up to around 17 km away, and occasionally further afield. Most responses were associated with urban land, with clear difference between the urban core, strongly associated with emotions, and the suburbs, with activities. Functional locations (i.e. sports facilities) and places which were valued for their social meaning (i.e. shopping malls), could be differentiated. Students were perceptive about change processes in the urban area, but not about those on the peripheral semi-natural land. Younger children were less aware than older children of spaces outside of the town and carried out fewer activities there. Females carried out fewer outdoor activities than male adolescents. In contrast to the adult population, students were more strongly focused on urban areas than on their surrounding rural landscapes. Here, awareness-raising and incentives are needed, particularly those encouraging females into the use of areas beyond the urban land. Our results suggest a lack of meaningful integration between the core city and the periphery, with lessons for urban planners.