Reconsidering The Image of the City

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: 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. 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. 3. 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. 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.