Place, space, and natural disasters

For those of you who might not be familiar with more academic geography, one of the fundamental concepts is "place vs space". The gist of it is that a place are objective while a space is the subjective. To anyone walking by, your house is just a place. But to you it is a home -- your connections to it make it into a space.

Natural disasters famously do damage to places: tsunamis wipe coastal towns off of maps, fires destroy neighborhoods, and earthquakes leave houses crippled. But the damage to spaces often last much longer.

Japan is having trouble getting people to move back into the areas damaged by the 2011 tsunami. Some may think its due to the radiation from Fukushima, but the radiation levels are well below damaging. It is the loss of character -- the loss of space -- that really keeps people from moving back. Their cities do not exist, even if the buildings were rebuilt.

The same has happened in California's many wildfires before, and LA will be no different. These people are losing more than just their houses. Neighborhoods will be rebuilt, and most of us won't be able to tell the difference in 10 or 15 years. But these peoples spaces are gone forever. Houses are rebuilt, but homes cannot be.