What connects people to these places are the experiences they live in those places.
Explanation:
The places where we live and work generate personal experiences that cause us to take root and get attached to those places. Because these experiences help us to build our personality and it is part of our history. As a result, we often want these places to be preserved and we strive for it, because losing them implies losing a part of yourself and erasing the proof that the transformative experiences we have experienced really existed.
In short, the experiences we have built over the years connect us to the places where we live, work and fight to preserve.
The narrator is speaking from their point of view meaning they cannot know what other characters are thinking. The story will revolve around what they are experiencing so we can only see it from one viewpoint.