The Rhetorical Dimensions of Place-making: Texts, Structures, and Movement in Atlantic Station

The suggestion that cities “speak” has become a growing interest in communication scholarship, yet the particular ways city spaces communicate remains under theorized. I argue that the intersection of people with spaces, the networks between texts, objects, and movement are all implicated in the rhetorical process of place-making in which individuals are both shaped by and shaping space. I envision this process to involve three interdependent modes of symbolization: textual constructions about place, symbolic activities of place, and movement and action in space. The mode of inquiry proposed here contributes to a body of scholarship interested in exploring the multiple ways cities “speak” by forwarding a reading of space as text. Focusing on the new urbanist community Atlantic Station in Atlanta, GA, this analysis reveals the dynamic tensions between the community’s textual representations, the structural symbolization of the development, and the uses of the space