Place Attachment in New York City's Jamaica Bay.

Using historical and ethnographic methods, this paper explores how livelihood, recreational, and protective attachments to New York City's Jamaica Bay combine with forces such as informal residential segregation to create a sense of "place attachment" around the National Park Service's Gateway National Recreation Area. The paper examines the physical (e.g., Jamaica Bay ecology) and social factors (e.g., residential segregation, recreational attachments) involved in place attachment as well as how place attachment has changed since the establishment of the Gateway National Recreation Area in 1972. The paper explores how place attachment can result in feelings of entitlement to nature that precludes neighboring communities' (of different racial and socio-economic status) use of this National Recreation Area. Consequently, the paper makes suggestions as to how environmental policy can foster environmental stewardship via place attachment without creating barriers for others' use of natural spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]