I think that what makes a community is some combination of shared  
values, beliefs and assumptions.
In a field of science these include issues such as:

1. what constitutes a research question;
2. what underlying assumptions can be made;
3. what constitutes a valid methodology;
4. what does a theory look like;
5. what ethical responsibilities does the researcher have.
....

Judging from people's behaviour at the biennial research symposia I  
think that there is no doubt that a 'space syntax community' exists.  
Symposium papers are largely agreed on the first four issues. In fact  
so much is known and assumed in the space syntax terminology, that the  
field can appear quite opaque to those outside it.  Along with much  
other science they say relatively little about the fifth, but I  
suspect that this will change as the science matures and its practical  
application raises ethical dilemmas.

Now, one point of a Journal 'in the field' as opposed to publishing  
outside it would be that many of the assumptions and methodological  
statements could remain unsaid, allowing papers to more rapidly move  
their argument and analysis to new territory. This is the shape of  
symposium papers. No longer would every paper have to start with an  
explanation of the idea of axial mapping and definitions of basic  
measures as these could all be treated as understood and by reference  
to previous publications. Nor would one need to reiterate basic  
theories such as the movement economy, or natural movement - one could  
move directly on to new data, anomalies and new theory, or to the  
deeper issues surrounding their application.

I see these as advantages for the field in just the same way that the  
symposia allow this kind of rapid development of new material. However  
I think they carry some real risks - as this happens the field will  
become more opaque to those who are not from it. The cost of entry  
will increase, and this runs a risk of reducing its impact and its  
reach into other fields. One reason why there are so many and such  
diverse places of publication is that space syntax as a set of methods  
and as a scientific paradigm can be applied in a diverse range of  
fields - archaeology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, economics,  
transport, crime, even architecture and planning - and in each of  
these it comes into friction (hopefully creative) with the pre- 
existing set of assumptions, theories and paradigms.

That friction rubs both ways. The way that space syntax states its  
case is always in response to current debates with other paradigms,  
and you can trace the development of the field through those  
interactions. Look for example at the developments surrounding axial,  
node map and segment representations that have come out of discussions  
on this mail list between the transport and urban modeling communities  
and space syntax. The discussions sometimes get heated, and often to  
people from other communities must look irrelevant and pedantic, but  
for those inside the discussion they stimulate accommodations and new  
ways of doing things on both sides of the discussion. My view is that  
if the journal does happen, and I think it should - there were two  
telephone directories of papers at Istanbul - then we will have to  
make more effort, not less to publish in other places.

Alan Penn
Professor of Architectural and Urban Computing,
The Bartlett School of Graduate Studies,
UCL,
Gower Street,
London WC1H 6BT
United Kingdom
tel: +44 (0)20 7679 5919
fax: +44 (0)20 7916 1887
m: +44 (0)7711 696875
[log in to unmask]
www.spacesyntax.com
www.vr.ucl.ac.uk



On 13 Mar 2008, at 17:41, Lucas Figueiredo wrote:

> Dear Julienne,
>
> I believe that the 64,000 dollar question is whether or not this
> community (or members of) are interested in assuming a position of
> control upon what is being published. In most communities, I believe,
> there is a couple of journals that are 'references' in the field that
> serve to create a terminology, point interesting lines of research. In
> resume, they serve bring people together to *generate* research.
>
> And any field or idea can only survive if it generates research.
>
> The list you mentioned shows how scattered is the publication of
> 'syntax-like' papers. As a newcomer, I even asked to my supervisors,
> more than once, if there was a place to publish my research.
>
> The answer is Environment and Planning B? No way. It publishes 100
> thousand different things - most of them uninteresting, not to say
> useless, for Architects.
>
> As you saw half of the list is of Brazilian Journals in Portuguese.
> Believe you or not the main journal subscription system (portal de
> periodicos CAPES), which serve ALL public universities in Brazil does
> not have EPB. People there does not read EPB and represent a big chunk
> of the numbers you listed.
>
> The numbers you presented (the mailbase, depthmap's distribution and
> symposia) cannot ensure a demand because most people involved with
> space syntax are practitioners or students interested in a 'ready'
> solution for practical problems.
>
> To complicate more, the most active people in this field is now more
> interested in questions outside architectural morphology or space and
> society. For some reason (that as a student I cannot understand),
> rather than build a field, they prefer to migrate to be an appendix of
> bigger communities, notably the spatial cognition one. Maybe for lack
> of a place to publish (or lack of space to breath at all).
>
> Journals are a political and strategical matter, that cross far way
> from proper 'scientific research'. They mostly serve for academic
> promotion.
>
> In this context, the real question is that there is interest in
> *generate* a demand?
>
> How to do this is a secondary question. There no-printed (online ones)
> and cheaper options for a journal and only the material of the
> symposium could fill at least an annual edition.
>
> Best Regards,
> Lucas
>
> On 11/03/2008, Julienne Hanson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Thank you to the 10 people who replied to my email of 06.02.08,  
>> seeking your
>> thoughts and opinions about the value of an on line journal for the  
>> space
>> syntax community and its academic 'friends and neighbours'. I am
>> particularly grateful to the 5 people who either sent me a finished  
>> paper,
>> or sent me an abstract or expressed interest in submitting a paper  
>> in the
>> near future.
>>
>> Thank you also to the 10 people (not identical with the same 10 as  
>> before)
>> who replied to my 22.02.08 enquiry about journals in which members  
>> of the
>> space syntax community have published.  Between them, they listed 25
>> journals. Regrettably the list, below, is likely to be far from  
>> complete.
>>
>> Architectural Research Quarterly
>> Area
>> Built Environment
>> Cadernos de Arqitetura e Urbanismo
>> Cadernos Metropole
>> Cities
>> Docomomo
>> Ediciones ARQ Chile
>> Environment and Behavior
>> Environment and Planning A
>> Environment and Planning B
>> Facilities
>> Geography Compass
>> Global Built Environment Review
>> Humanidades
>> Journal of Urban Design
>> Journal of Urban Morphology
>> Oculum Ensaios
>> Physica A
>> Progress in Planning
>> Revista Brasileira de Estudos Urbanos e Regionais
>> RUA
>> Traffic Technology International
>> Urban Design International
>> Urban Studies
>>
>> Currently 483 people are registered on the Space Syntax mail base.  
>> The
>> point at issue is unlikely to be whether there is a demand for the  
>> Journal
>> of Space Syntax. Most people I have spoken to think there is.
>>
>> The 64,000 dollar question is whether the space syntax community is  
>> yet in a
>> position to supply enough original material, in addition to the  
>> papers that
>> we already collectively produce for the biennial symposium, to  
>> warrant a
>> journal of our own. For comparative purposes, a leading journal in  
>> our field
>> attracts about 200 submissions each year in order to print 60 per  
>> year.
>> About half of the papers received get redirected elsewhere. Pro rata,
>> assuming that nothing is turned away the space syntax community and  
>> its
>> allies will need to produce an additional 34 papers (14 full  
>> academic papers
>> and 20 short papers on research methods and applications, split  
>> over two
>> issues per year) per year, in order to print 20 (8 full plus 12  
>> short) each
>> year. I thought we were ready for a journal, but now I am not so  
>> sure.
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>> Julienne Hanson
>> Professor of House Form and Culture
>>
>> Bartlett School of Graduate Studies
>> UCL (University College London)
>> 1-19 Torrington Place
>> Gower Street
>> London WC1E 6BT
>>
>> Tel:        020 7679 1740
>> Fax:       020 7916 1887
>> Email:     [log in to unmask]
>
>
> -- 
> Lucas Figueiredo
>