Readings

They Say, I Say Introduction and_CH1

For Class The Week of 9/16:

  • “The Next Environmental Revolution” from Welcome to Your World by Sarah Williams Goldhagen
  • Image of the City video about Kevin Lynch, who is mentioned in “The Environmental Revolution.” Kevin Lynch was an American urban planner and theorist, and Image of the City is the name of his most important book. This video explains the main concepts of Image of the City. Image of the City was the result of a five-year study of Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles on how observers take in information of the city, and use it to make mental maps. Lynch’s conclusion was that people formed mental maps of their surroundings consisting of five basic elements: Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes, and Landmarks.[1]
    • Paths
      • These are the streets, sidewalks, trails, canals, railroads, and other channels in which people travel
      • They arrange space and movement between space
    • Edges
      • Boundaries
      • They can be either Real or Perceived
      • These are walls, buildings, and shorelines, curbstone, streets, overpasses, etc.
    • Districts
      • Medium to large areas that are two-dimensional
      • An individual enters into and out of these areas
      • Have common identifying characteristics
    • Nodes
      • Large areas you can enter, serve as the foci of the city, neighborhood, district, etc.
      • Offers the person in them multiple perspectives of the other core elements
      • “…the most successful node seemed both to be unique in some way and at the same time to intensify some surrounding characteristic”[1]:77
    • Landmarks
      • Points of reference person cannot enter into
      • These are buildings, signs, stores, mountains, public art
      • At least one aspect of them is unique or memorable in the context they exist
      • Mobile Points (such as Sun) can be used as well.

    (This information taken from Wikipedia’s entry on Kevin Lynch.)

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