"From Space to Place and Back Again," David Harvey

In "from Space to Place and Back Again" David Harvey attempts an interpretation of place and space through the very opposite views of Marx and Heidegger. 

Under the Marxist analysis place and space are products of the interaction of capital and are generated through a social construct that creates differences through its dynamic. Harvey emphasized that the construction of space is always a consequence of the cognition of place according to socially constructed historical and geographical differences. These differences can be commodified and sold to a globalized tourism, and can also be "colorized" by place representation through the "cultural mass" (consisting in elements or individuals that process and influence the reception of cultural products). But this is the "happy" side of the argument, as unfortunately, in a globalized capitalist society places take the function of nodes to allow the flow of capital, with the main purpose of catching it, and of retaining it for as long as possible-therefore creating sites of resistance. By doing so, these sites of resistance generate a "tension"consisting in the "class struggle" that is a byproduct of the process of production, and an inevitable outcome of the overall capital distribution. 

Harvey emphasizes the fundamental role of the speculative element in this process, to be understood in the United States as one vast real estate venture. Here, the spatial competition between places determines the success or failure of speculative investments, the tension between these investment in place development, and the geographical mobility of other forms of capital. His discussion, centering onto the gentrified area of Baltimore (Ghilford) illustrates how this notion applies to real places. And how it generates social constructs tied to race, crime, and space. It does this by creating social economical stereotypes determining space-place perception and delineation which generate issues of racial and class division; making the town of Ghilford into a sociopolitical project and into a symbol of power struggle.

Under the Marxian logic, therefore, place construction follows a logic tied to the political economy of capital distribution and its consequent economic expansion, shift of production and so on. Which differences are created by the uneven distribution of capital. Furthermore, place is either a point on a map or a "permanence" (place that has been named). It is subject to other social processes such as configuration of social relations, material practices, or form of power. And it can be imaginary or institutionalized. Space identity, on the other hand, relates to the earlier discourse of historical and geographical differentiation and colorization. These places shape, and are identified withing a cultural politics of place, and are the result of place bond cultural movement and regional resistance. 

Harvey uses Heidegger's very opposite view to illustrate a different interpretation of place providing an escape from the rhetoric of capital. ("place based dwelling").  And it is especially under Heidegger’s phenomenological rhetoric and focus on the “dwelling” that he attempts to connect place construction with the “locus of being.” Therefore, as Heidegger stated, the dwelling is the capability to achieve a spiritual unity between humans and things by "withdrawing attention from the world market and by seeking a ways to uncover the truths of human existence phenomenologically." Dwelling according to Heidegger is like the roots of one’s homeland, establishing  a personal connection to the place.  According to Harvey, Heidegger’s”ontological excavations” have inspired a particular way of understanding the social process of place construction, which focuses on the way places are constructed in our memories through repeated encounters and complex associations. He, therefore, emphasizes how "experiences are time dependent and memory-qualified," and how place and being are inseparable because "place is the local of truth of being in nature." He, however, recognizes that our alienation from nature in contemporary society is due to the fact that our state as organisms embedded in nature is spoiled by its extension into a chain of commodity production. Place is also space tied to memory where things have happen and continue to create a cultural continuity and identity across generations. And where inhabited space constitutes a community of memories and images that can extend to geographical features serving as mnemonic pegs to which to hang the moral teaching of history. The permanence of space, and of things within them, allows the perpetuation of cultural identity; causing identity and memory to be lost, if the place is lost. Among the many cognitional processes described by Heidegger, the genius loci is the principle that tie together time past with time future while acknowledging the experience of the environment and the capacity for dwelling in the land. 

In conclusion: "while Marxism fails in his refusal to deal with the mystic qualities of places and does not arrive to a full understanding of ‘dwelling.’ Heidegger's phenomenology at the other extreme totally rejects any sense of moral responsibility beyond the world of immediate sensuous and contemplative experience. As well as any dealings with the world of commodity, money, technology, and production via any international division of labor."