Place attachment and place identity in heritage neighborhoods

UNESCO's international policy for the protection of world heritage was integrated into the national and local development agendas of Latin American countries, managing social and urban improvement projects in historic city districts. The social, environmental and economic effects of these processes of heritage sites have not been sufficiently analyzed. In this sense and assuming a psycho-environmental perspective, this research describes and compares the indices of place attachment and place identity in 3 neighborhoods in the city of Valparaiso (n=544) and 2 in the city of Quito (n=209), which are located in areas classified as World Heritage. Through the application of Student t tests for comparing means and Cohen d tests for assessing the size of the effect, it was observed that people who have resided for longer periods of time, who live in consolidated heritage neighborhoods and who own their own homes, show higher scores in terms of place attachment and place identity. A moderate level of Place Attachment and Place Identity was observed in Valparaíso and Quito.