Abstract
The Image of the City was published over 20 years ago, and it is still listed in bibliographies.1 It is time to wonder what it led to. The research was done by a small group with no training in the methods they used, and no literature to guide them. Several motives led them to the study:
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1.
An interest in the possible connection between psychology and the urban environment, at a time when most psychologists—at least, those in the field of perception—preferred controlled experiments in the laboratory to the wandering variables of the complicated, real environment. We hoped to tempt some of them out into the light of day.
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2.
Fascination with the aesthetics of the city landscape, at a time when most U.S. planners shied away from the subject, because it was “a matter of taste” and had a low priority.
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Persistent wonder about how to evaluate a city, as architects do so automatically when presented with a building design. Shown a city plan, planners would look for technical flaws, estimate quantities, or analyze trends, as if they were contractors about to bid on the job. We hoped to think about what a city should be, and we were looking for possibilities of designing directly at that scale.
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4.
Hope of influencing planners to pay more attention to those who live in a place—to the actual human experience of a city, and how it should affect city policy.
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References
K. Lynch (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1960 ).
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956.
K. Lynch, What Time Is This Place? ( Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1972 ).
H. F. Searles, The Non-Human Environment ( New York: International University Press, 1960 ).
D. Appleyard, Planning a Pluralist City: Conflicting Realities in Ciudad Guyana ( Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1976 ).
P. B. Herr et al., Ecologue/Cambridgeport Project ( Cambridge: M.I.T. Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 1972 ).
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T. K. Banerjee, “Urban Experience and the Development of the City Image” ( Ph.D. dissertation, M.I.T. Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 1971 ).
B. A. Smith, “The Image of the City 10 Years Later” (Master’s thesis, M.I.T. Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 1971 ).
In his incomplete and unpublished manuscript “Identity, Power, and Place.” HA. Rapoport, “The Meaning of the Built Environment,” (1983).
Moore and Golledge, op. cit.
G. Evans, “Environmental Cognition,” Psychological Bulletin 88, no. 2 (1980): 259–287.
San Francisco Department of City Planning, San Francisco Urban Design Study, 8 vols.,and Urban Design Plan (San Francisco, 1969–1971).
Dallas Department of Urban Planning, The Visual Form of Dallas (Dallas, 1974).
Minneapolis Planning Commission, Toward a New City ( Community Renewal Plan, Minneapolis, 1965 ).
T. Yata, “City-Wide Urban Design Policies” ( Ph.D. dissertation, M.I.T. Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 1979 ).
K. Lynch (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1976 ).
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© 1984 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Lynch, K. (1984). Reconsidering The Image of the City. In: Rodwin, L., Hollister, R.M. (eds) Cities of the Mind. Environment, Development, and Public Policy. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9697-1_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9697-1_9
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