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The Usefulness of “Neighborhood Experience Maps” As a Tool in City Planning and Urban Design Author: Yodan Y. Rofe Dissertation School: University of California, Berkeley Pages: 429 Publication Date: May 1997 Availability: Access Number: 10728 Abstract: Much of the rationale for planning regulations and controls has traditionally been tied to the need to protect the health and welfare of the public. However, in practice, planners have been primarily concerned with economic and functional matters; and only incidentally with the way places are actually experienced by people. One of the reasons that this gap exists is that we do not have a clear understanding of the connection between the functional and economical performance of places and urban spaces, and the feelings experience that they produce. At the personal level, we know that there is some connection, most of us feel that under certain environmental conditionals we are better able to function and carry out our daily projects, than under other conditions. However, we do not have a clear understanding of these phenomena at the aggregate, societal level. And yet, if indeed this experience is widely shared, it can be very influential in the economic and functional fate of a particular location. This project hopes to address this problem, for a small neighborhood area, by developing a method of observation and recording of the experience of relative well-being as felt by people who reside in the area or visit it. This method makes it possible to examine the possibility of a synthesis between these experiences, and the functional, socio-economic and spatial dimensions of the area under study. In order to make this method useful it is necessary to answer the following three questions: First: Is it possible to create a coherent aggregate map from many individual maps? Second: Assuming that the answer to the first question is at least a qualified yes, can a meaningful correlation be found between positive and negative experiences, and spatial, social and economic measures of the environment? Third: Is it possible to create a synthesis of the experience maps and the functional analysis of an area in a single “diagnostic mapping” which combines the planner's and expert's view (the functional analysis), and the lay person's new (the experience maps)? A series of pilot studies will be carried out first to refine the experience map method, and to test its validity. Following that an in depth case study of a small neighborhood will be carried out. This method is most appropriate because it makes possible an analysis of the relationship between people's experience and the spatial and social structure of an area. It also makes it feasible to collect first hand data which is not readily available from existing sources. This study is timely for several reasons. Historically, many housing efforts have failed partly because they ignored the experience of people in the places produced. The renovation and upgrading of declining or depressed areas cannot move forward without considering as a variable in the intervention the daily everyday experience and analysis, the method may help bring ordinary citizens and professionals closer together in building an understanding of the problems of an area. It enables ordinary people to tie between their subjective experiences, the experiences of other people living in the area, and the objective state of the local environment. In this way it paves the way for responsible action by an informed citizenry that is solidly grounded in objective knowledge of the place, and these aspects of experience that are reliable, consistent and widely shared. |
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