My category of place is in some ways more flexible and in other ways more restrictive than the categories in other theories, in particular because it offers no simple term for non-places. That is, there can be non-places that are areas and locations, and there can be non-places that are locales with a striking unified character but are still not places for our activity. Especially, there is no notion of non-place that applies to the sort of thing that many other call non-places: suburban strips, malls, sprawling subdivisions, theme parks, and so on. Those are, in my terms, fully places, though they may have oversimplified grammars.
I regard it as an important plus not to make the term place into an honorific for what we approve of or wish we lived in. Malls and suburban strips are as real places as cozy homes or central Paris. They may not be as complex, or as thick, or as rich, but to call them non-places blunts the critical mind just when we need it most. The question is what kind of places they are, and how they can be brought to improve on their own possibilities.
(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001