Every adult seems to remember a special place from their past: a place of refuge as a child; sites of family vacations; a grandparent's farm; somewhere shared with a loved one at a special time. Many people, though often with some embarrassment, will confess to a favorite place in the present where they can go to be alone, to gather with friends, or spend leisure time. Places we can identify with—and that feel special. A literature about that identification with place—that sense of place—has burgeoned in the last two decades of the twentieth century.

Yet, contemporary literature, both fictional and factual, is packed with documentation of alienation, root-lessness, displaced people, loss of connection to any particular place, loss of identity and character in suburb and city. In 1957, in America as a Civilization, Max Lerner documented the loss of community and the...