Often times, when a resident of a city or town is prompted to give their impression about the environment that they live in, they could be willing to give a detailed response about what they enjoy and potentially dislike about where they live, because as a resident, they would have made their first priority to adapt to their new environment that they live in or perhaps bridge the similarities between their previous home and their new one.

For those who have lived in one home their whole lives, they would have developed an understanding of where they live like no other. This raises a few questions, a common one likely being: “Is this implying that residents have an impression of their homes that visitors often lack?” While there definitely wouldn’t be a guaranteed consistency for a response to that question, there are visitors who can formulate definite impressions of where they are visiting, which bridge almost identically to those who live in that same place for years.

Irvine is the city in question here. There is often a general consensus that Irvine is a nice, quiet, and controlled environment, with a clean atmosphere to back it up. This atmosphere is the type of which is not often found on other regions of the country and the world. Bringing up the topic just mentioned, it can now be assumed that this idea of Irvine was developed by those who reside in the city. However, other people who do not live in the city make impressions almost identical to this, a good example being Bon Pang. While he doesn’t live in Irvine, he visits it at times to meet with his friends, and when he does, he gets a feel for what the city is like. “I definitely like it,” he says. “The cleanliness, the kind of the atmosphere, it’s not like other places.”

This impression given here is similar to that of the residents, although Bon does not live in Irvine. The impact a city leaves in its creation and gives not only shows to those who live in it, but those who are aware of it, showing that a city has more roots and influence than to just the people inside it.

<Heejae Park / OCSA 9th Grade>