Placelessness

Globalization and the horizontal integration of corporate structures have more recently introduced the notion of placelessness into the modern vocabulary. Big-box chain retail stores and identical, production-built tract houses can be understood as placeless places. These are technically places in that stories are lived in them, but the generic nature and short time span of the buildings make them resistant to holding the stories that are generated there. More and more of the contemporary landscape is being taken over by developments in which it can be very hard to tell where one happens to be located.

Eric Jacobsen
The Space Between