What kind of person is your place?

Can a place be a person? In a biological sense of course not. A place can’t “be” a person but I would certainly argue that a place can be “like” a person.

We often refer to the DNA of a place or the personality of a place, its character, and in that sense a place takes on human attributes. In other words we refer to it as if it were a person and that seems a reasonable way to talk about a place and begin to understand it.

As people we constantly strive to improve ourselves in different ways while respecting and staying true to our essential being – who we “really” are. That’s true of places too, perhaps now more than ever. Places have to continually challenge themselves, to improve, in order to remain relevant and attractive. However, they must still retain that part of themselves that uniquely define them as them. As soon as we try and be something we are not we tend to slip up, so it is for places.

Self-improvement is a tricky balance of being true to ourselves, or more precisely adapting our true selves. Places have to do the same.

Think about the people we are attracted to and want to spend time with.

While beauty may very well be in the eye of its beholder, looks do play their part but there are some core elements. Arguably clean, tidy and other aspects of personal hygiene are probably in the basic list of things we expect from someone we might spend time with. They too are the basics for a place but not enough, just like looks are not enough in the people we like.

Our best friends, the people we spend most time with, offer us something more. They make us feel safe and welcome. They provide comfort and amusement - they entertain us. They stimulate us on some level – intellectually, emotionally, sensually. When we need them they are there and we know they won’t let us down.

It seems, then, reasonable to think of a place as having human qualities. To think of a place as a person and to ask whether we like our place, whether other people will like our place and in what ways can our place become a better version of itself.  

So, what kind of person is your place?