I would only argue with the word "sad". I don't think I ever felt sad, per se. Probably because I grew up in the Calumet Region, when the steel mills were committing suicide and being murdered, so community life has always seemed to me to be in a constant state of decay. If you saw the change in the Goldblatt's department store in downtown Hammond, Ind., from 1972 through 1987, you'd know exactly what I mean. (I think it may be better now, actually.)

I think about that attitude toward decay now that I'm in South Florida, where the whole strand of Florida writers like Hiassen and Dorsey and McDonald treat with the idea of solastalgia. Though they are more explicitly about "growth" itself as "decay".

Anyway, in an online content, I'm not really sad about those things, because I usually see exactly why they happen.

And I don't think of it as an overall decay of BBSs like Echo or the Well. It happens in forums that are part of very robust larger communitites.

Sure, I can see how "sadness" maybe isn't precisely the correct word. It's more like a sort of existential disjointedness?

And yes, sure, I meant "decay" in the sense of individual forums (fora?) within a BBS decaying ... the entire communities of the Well and/or Echo haven't in toto decayed.

Anthropologists would probably link this to the widely discussed, yet kinda obious, human capacity for knowing, recognicing, understanding the caracter of, and relating to - places. They say our fondness for particular places and our ability and inclination to relate memories, stories and knowledge to particular loci in the landscape (rather than walking around picturing the world as a map) is a human instinct, and if you wanna be tabloid-scientific, that this instinct is particularly helpful for foragers, the tabloid-scientific bit being the "when we were hunters and gatherers"-connotation. In rural society, of course, the same phenomenon helps create identity and is an incentive for working hard at maintaining your patch, and bla bla bla.

Anyway, I couldn't find it in English anywhere, but there's a recent story about a 70 year old Norwegian farmer, Harry Moe, who yesterday ended a 41 day-long hunger strike. He started the strike because the municipality of Ørsta, in central Norway, was planning to build a road that would have taken up 4,1 dekar of his land. Now, Harry Moe lives well, like most norwegians. He would have received an appropriate financial compensation, and he is retired, so he doesn't work that land anymore anyway. When asked why he went to such dramatic measures, he answers "this is not just building a road - it's destroying food land, destroying cultural heritage, and destroying a part of me. If they think this road is worth killing for, then I think the battle is worth dying for". Yesterday, the municipality decided to postpone the issue by six years, and after conferring with his lawyer, Moe decided to start eating again, even though he is not completely happy with the outcome. He is, I guess, trying to prevent his own solastalgia. And it's a lost cause.

Sorry for the long comment. Just an a propos.

How about the loss of significant industry? I moved to Buffalo two years ago, and while the general mood of the population here is positive, I have always felt an underlying sense of defeatism stemming from the closing of the steel mills. Or it could just be the Bills.

Eke, that's an excellent story! A perfect example of solastalgia.

Scott, yeah, the collapse of big steel has probably produced more of these feelings than almost anything in the US since the great depression.

Hello Morgan, Clive, eke and others. I have just found this site and figured out how to connect. It is encouraging to see the concept I have created being used in such thoughtful and interesting ways (academics worry about these things). The posting by eke is spot on ... this is exactly what I was thinking about when I created the term 'solastalgia'.

My own thinking about environmental distress was triggered by the experiences of people affected by large-scale open caste/cut coal mining in my own region (NSW Australia). One native Australian told me that he even drives unnecessary routes to avoid seeing the desolation being caused to his traditional lands by the mining activity. He told me that he gets physically ill in the presence of such environmental distress. Solastalgia has connections to both physical and mental health.

I am continuing work on the concept and will be publishing more on it soon. I hope that the journal, Alternatives (Canada), will publish a short essay that connects solastalgia to many of the themes discussed on this site.

However, the best way to have solastalgia enter the mainstream will be if people find it a useful and relevant concept in their lived experience of environmental change. It seems from the postings so far that it has the potential to make such meaningful connections. Thanks to all.

Glenn, so cool you dropped by to post!

I'll be interested to see if your concept takes off in the mainstream. It has such obvious relevance to so many ongoing experiences around the world -- sadly, because of the environmental decay going on all the time -- that I'd suspect it's got as good a chance as any neologism. On top of that, as neologisms go, it's actually a quite beautiful and onomatopeoic word.

I meant to mention back when we were talking about this: it also fits the ongoing writing of Carl Hiaasen, in his Miami Herald column and his novels.