• DOI:10.1111/j.1931-0846.2008.tb00311.x
• Corpus ID: 162890517

Place Making, Hazardous Waste, And The Development Of Tooele County, Utah*

@article{Shumway2008PlaceMH,
  title={Place Making, Hazardous Waste, And The Development Of Tooele County, Utah*},
  author={Jeffrey M. Shumway and Richard H. Jackson},
  journal={Geographical Review},
  year={2008},
  volume={98},
  pages={433 - 455},
  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:162890517}
}

• J. Shumway, R. Jackson
• Published 1 October 2008
• Environmental Science, Geography, Sociology
• Geographical Review

ABSTRACT. Declining populations, aging inhabitants and infrastructure, limited economic opportunities, and under‐ or unappreciated natural environments characterize a number of rural communities in the western United States. Faced with the challenges of providing for their residents, some of these communities have chosen to permit undesirable land‐use activities, including the disposal of hazardous or nuclear waste. Central to the development of such sites is how a place is perceived and… 

ABSTRACT. Declining populations, aging inhabitants and infrastructure, limited economic opportunities, and under‐ or unappreciated natural environments characterize a number of rural communities in the western United States. Faced with the challenges of providing for their residents, some of these communities have chosen to permit undesirable land‐use activities, including the disposal of hazardous or nuclear waste. Central to the development of such sites is how a place is perceived and portrayed. Our purpose in this article is to examine how a dominant perception and portrayal of one such place—Tooele County, Utah—was created and used to facilitate the development of hazardous‐waste‐disposal sites. We use the geographical concept of “place” to illustrate how meanings and values are attached to a region in order to justify its becoming what it is and how such views persist.