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SPACESYNTAX  December 2012

SPACESYNTAX December 2012

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Subject:

Re: The image of the city

From:

Bin Jiang <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

[log in to unmask]

Date:

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 20:23:39 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

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text/plain (324 lines)

I would categorize the habitual and special occurrences, or whatever 
similar as semantics, which bears the scaling property as well.

On 12/23/2012 7:55 PM, Benjamin Vis wrote:
> I don't think the special position a small park (or whatever) is limited to things involving the queen or being relatively unique between larger ones, it is in fact a very personal and specific experience, which could be due to habitual as well as special occurrences, that will lead to such a position in the mind. As far as the example goes, I think it quite successfully points out the difficulties with the discussion so far. Perhaps scaling is present in these experiences, conceptualised as occurrences, but in that case the diversity of locations and variety of reasons are nearly infinite. I'd still encourage thinking along more appropriate units, which may include aspects of that.
>
> Benjamin
>
> Sent from my Windows Phone
> ________________________________
> From: Bin Jiang<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: ‎23/‎12/‎2012 16:57
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: The image of the city
>
> Surely small parks may have a high impact than large ones, if a small
> park is surrounded by many large ones. In this circumstance, the small
> ones become unique ones in the head, since they are a minority.
>
> A small park could have a high impact, if it bears high semantic
> meaning, e.g., if a queen of the country were assassinated in the little
> park.
> On 12/23/2012 5:32 PM, Benjamin Vis wrote:
>> It's the same kind if list with the same type of units, so no. The fact that these things are humanly produced does not matter. What, amongst other things, is missing is the impact they have. Small parks may have a mire decisive impact in my experience than large ones. In fact, I just visited a large one, the location of which I roughly knew for years, but wasn't on the list to visit before many small ones, and having visited it is going to change my experience only un having more knowledge if it now, but in importance will remain very limited. It's not the purest example, but hints at the lacunae I pointed out before.
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>>
>> Benjamin
>>
>> Sent from my Windows Phone
>> ________________________________
>> From: Bin Jiang<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: ‎23/‎12/‎2012 15:40
>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: The image of the city
>>
>> Benjamin, what about this list? far more short streets than long ones,
>> far more small street blocks than large ones, far more low buildings
>> than high buildings, far more small greens (parks) than large greens,
>> far more low density locations and high ones, .... All these phenomena
>> are human made. If still not in operation, one has to make effort on the
>> understanding. This is because scaling is not a kind of surface order,
>> but a hidden order. Mike had suggested some excellent examples as well.
>>
>> On 12/23/2012 3:27 PM, Benjamin Vis wrote:
>>> Bin, spoken as a natural scientist I might be inclined to agree, as a human being myself, therefore having another understanding and experience of the phenomena I'm not so sure about the units you just selected. Whether or not scaling is in operation, these units do not automatically correspond on a level of human understanding.
>>>
>>>
>>> Benjamin
>>>
>>> Sent from my Windows Phone
>>> ________________________________
>>> From: Bin Jiang<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: ‎23/‎12/‎2012 12:35
>>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>> Subject: Re: The image of the city
>>>
>>> In response to Benjamin,
>>>
>>> Society is surely scaling, e.g., far more poor people than rich people,
>>> far more ordinary people than extra-ordinary people, far more small
>>> settlements than large ones, ... (correction to one of the early ones:
>>> far more short rivers than long rivers)...
>>>
>>> Is that sufficient? Of course, one can extend the list.
>>>
>>> On 12/23/2012 12:27 PM, Benjamin Vis wrote:
>>>> In reply to Bin,
>>>>
>>>> I was expecting this kind if suggestion, so I'm glad you made it. What you've done is telling us exactly why a geologist or biologist would be interested in scaling, but not why a sociologist should too. If your aim is social scientific, your constructs should be of human order. Mike has again shown that there may be strong correlations between what human being communicate about their knowledge and scaling, but whether scaling is therefore meaningfully human I don't know. There is no harm in looking at human society and its outcomes as a biologist, but then one's aims to me are not to understand or interpret as social science tends to do. That is an important distinction that should be made. Interpretive science tends not to seek for laws as such.
>>>>
>>>> Benjamin
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my Windows Phone
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> From: Maria Guerreiro<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Sent: ‎23/‎12/‎2012 10:46
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Subject: Re: The image of the city
>>>>
>>>> Hello all
>>>>
>>>> Scaling is the natural law. Is a law of self-organization. I see no reason why it should not apply to us and everything we do.
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Maria
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2012/12/23 Bin Jiang <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>> Benjamin and Alan,
>>>>
>>>> Let's go back to the time when there were no human activities or civilization. At that time, there were no cities of course only caves. BUT the space, more specifically, the earth surface was scaling as it is today, e.g., far more space of water than space of land as it is today, far more long rivers than short rivers, far more flat lands and hill lands, ....That is the partial reason cities or human activities are mainly situated around flat space with a river or rivers passing through. Of course, forms or formations of cities are the outcome of human interaction, communication, and competition. I truly believe that both nature and society are scaling. However, if one wants to point to which is the first and foremost, I would say it is space. The city space is outcome of human activities, and scaling is outcome of both space effect and human effect.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers.
>>>>
>>>> Bin
>>>>
>>>> On 12/22/2012 10:00 PM, Benjamin Vis wrote:
>>>> Bin and Alan,
>>>>
>>>> Heuristically I tend to allow a discussion of the spatial separate from the social. For empirical applications, conceptualisations of solely spatial and physical characteristics makes sense. If, however, any 'understanding' is desired (rather than description, calculation and/or correlation), I strongly believe it's not the spatial or social that is needed, but the intrinsic indivisibility of both. In my work this is what I mean by saying socio-spatial. Anything social is immediately spatial, but I completely agree with Alan that the social (or human) comes first and is the driver. This has always been my view, and I think is what space syntax often claims, but demonstrates only to various limited extents in how it develops its methods. Without human (inter)action the world would not have been transformed and modified to take on the shapes we study. Am I to understand that this is where you disagree, Bin?
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Benjamin
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my Windows Phone
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> From: Penn, Alan<mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>> Sent: 22/12/2012 20:29
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>> Subject: Re: The image of the city
>>>>
>>>> in response to Bin: I guess my position is that people produce spatial morphology, (or appropriate to their purposes the affordances of found morphology). In this sense the spatial and the social are actually one, and the social if anything comes prior to the spatial.
>>>>
>>>> I find it hard to interpret the Hillier & Iida  findings as anything other than causal, albeit probabilistic (determining the aggregate outcome)  but space is socially produced in the main, so the driver in this is the development of social forms.
>>>>
>>>> Alan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>
>>>> On 22 Dec 2012, at 18:56, "Bin Jiang" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 12/22/2012 5:45 PM, Benjamin Vis wrote:
>>>> Dear Alan,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for these helpful comments and ideas.
>>>>
>>>> I should probably consult Hillier and Iida's to further inform myself.
>>>> I tend to disagree with Hillier and Iida on human conceptualization of space (metric, topological or angular) that leads to the movement pattern. I think that the human movement pattern is little to do with human moving behavior or conceptualization of space; see http://fromto.hig.se/~bjg/movingbehavior/
>>>> What I do take from your description, what they found is a construct that correlates similarly to individual and aggregate observations of movement. Though clearly of interest, that is not a causal relation between the construct and the behaviour, nor is it a full account of the human experience leading to what could possibly be called the mental map or what we commonsensically know that to be.
>>>> I started to see Benjamin's view on individual and aggregated observations. I wonder if Benjamin has the same way of thinking as Hillier and Iida, attempting to seek cause from the human perspective (Hillier and Iida's view) rather than the space perspective (my view).
>>>> I can relate to Alasdair's idea that the knowledge of the experience is partly exosomatic. This accounts well for the human condition as not only embodied, but emplaced. I agree that implies the need for cognitive mechanisms (forms of intelligibility) to access and use that knowledge. But that does not tell us how the 'mental map' comes into being, which is what I have taken the 'scaling' argument to attempt to uncover.
>>>> I agree with Benjamin on this scaling view, which is in fact the space perspective.
>>>>       I typically broadly describe the social as those phenomena that require interpersonal relations of two or more people. Though I would not preclude that the experience of social phenomena plays a role in the formation of the mental map, but that mental map is not shared in common with others.
>>>> I tend to believe our mental maps are mostly shared in common, although each of us has something unique, personal, or non-overlapped each other.
>>>> It is foremost something I can so far only regard as something individual. Whatever it is exactly, I suppose it is of social importance because it influences (through the mechanisms suspected) behaviour, which in turn affects our relations with others. By now, however, I believe we have well left behind the original arguments of Bin, and moved into an interesting different set of questions. Studying these cognitive mechanisms regard knowledge already stored, which is of interest, but does not coincide with the formation of that knowledge, the formation of that elusive thing that the mental map turns out to be.
>>>>
>>>> Benjamin
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my Windows Phone
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> From: Penn, Alan<mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>> Sent: 22/12/2012 13:44
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>> Subject: Re: The image of the city
>>>>
>>>> Just a few points. I am not particularly hung up on the relation between two/many variables, except in that these correlations appear to be  a property of bottom-up development processes in urban systems (and often the relationship seems to be missing in top down planned environments). I like the simplicity of allometry in a single variable, and I like even more the simplicity implied by Bin's 'head and tail' break. This is a property that should work for any skewed variable regardless of the detail of the distribution such as log or power laws. The kind of distribution gets interesting when we want to define the kind of generative process that might be involved. The 'head/tail' is of course very similar to what used to be done in the very early days of syntax before graphic computing when we had to represent on the axial map the 'core' of integration by going over the line map and blacking in the top 5% most integrated spaces , and dotting in the 25% most segregated. It was in this way that important phenomena such as the 'deformed wheel core' were identified - something was lost when we stopped doing things by hand :-)
>>>>
>>>> Second, 'mental maps' seem to me to be a thing that is often spoken of but with remarkably little precision. The same words are used to describe something that common sense suggests we ought to have - an idea of where we are and where we might want to get to that allows us to plan a way of getting from here to there; a real part of the brain - perhaps O'keefe and Nadel's hyppocampus with its place, vector and grid cells providing the neural mechanisms for how we might store our maps of the world and know where we are and which way we are facing; and those maps we ask experimental subjects to draw of the environments that they recall. These last are a pretty rough and ready tool but perhaps the best we have to hand.
>>>>
>>>> Kim used the latter and showed something that ties in with one of Bin's predictions, that there could be a scaling of features that people recall associated with some measure of their importance. Whilst this couldn't be thought of as conclusive it is at least pointing in the same direction and provides some empirical support.
>>>>
>>>> Alasdair proposed the interesting idea that the 'cognitive map' might be at least partly exosomatic. This 'embodied/embedded' notion challenges both mind/body and body/environment dualisms, but requires cognitive mechanisms such as intelligilbility of perhaps allometry to allow the subject to retrieve the map and use it to make decisions.
>>>>
>>>> Hillier and Iida's contribution was to see that by constructing a single segment model of the urban system one could then use this to enquire which factors - angular deviation, topological or metric depth - best accounted for aggregate behaviour of a whole observed population. This shifts enquiries about the cognitive away fro individual experimental data to make use of whole population observations in the complexity of the real world. The main finding was that in spite of the utility maximising orthodoxy the metric model accounted very poorly for observed movement, while topological and angular models accounted well. This is consistent with cognitive scientists' mainly individual experimental findings.  This may help with Benjamin's worry about the individual versus the collective - both seem to be consistent with one another.
>>>>
>>>> On this last issue I think it is worth noting that Syntax is a largely social set of theories, and while the social must arise out of the individual (hence the interest in the cognitive and affective) it is probably only those aspects of individual experience that are shared in common  between people that matter for the social. This is not so say that those aspects that are completely individual are not important or of interest, but just that it is hard to see how they can be socially important.
>>>>
>>>> Alan
>>>>
>>>> On 21 Dec 2012, at 23:16, Bin Jiang <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi, Benjamin,
>>>>
>>>> Herewith my comments below:
>>>>
>>>> On 12/21/2012 10:11 AM, Benjamin Vis wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Bin,
>>>>
>>>> Yes you can repost the combined answers and replies to the list, wanted to keep the stream of emails down for everyone, since I was mostly asking for further clarification.
>>>>
>>>> On the basis of your persistence on single variables, quantitative at that, I feel I should be asking another question. Does it make sense to want to approach an idea about mental maps on the basis of a single quantitative variable? I think it might always be a combination of factors that creates a single impression. This idea then is in need of its own concepts and it seems doubtful to assume that existing quantitative measures might feed into it immediately.
>>>>
>>>> My persistence on simple variables is in contrast to Alan’s idea of correlation of two variables, the idea of allometry. In fact, city artifacts can be characterized by at least three variables: geometric, topological and semantic, and all of them are likely to be scaling or power law distributed. I believe that all the three factors are involved in the process of mental mapping. In short, yes, I agree with you on the point of combining factors.
>>>>
>>>> I feel still somewhat at a loss as to what you are trying to understand by understanding the generation of the mental map, as you mainly explained to me what you think you could do with scaling if it were of constitutive importance methodologically. Understanding how a mental map is generated seems either commonsensical or something more readily achieved for individuals. How you go from there to a collective mental maps I don't really see. It almost seems a contradiction to me even.
>>>>
>>>> My point was that with scaling the imageablity and legibility can be quantified, and we can compute the image of the city using increasing social media data like Flickr and Twitter (I meant georeferenced locations in particular). I was not talking about individual mental maps, but a collective mental map derived from social media data, the idea of the wisdom of crowds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds). However, there is a close relationship of the collective mental maps and individual mental maps. For example, I would boldly predict that a majority part of our mental maps (e.g., 80%) are overlapped each other, only a minority part of our mental maps (e.g., less than 20%) are unique to individuals. Over the 80% of overlap or common language, we are able to communicate with people about a particular city; otherwise, the communication would be extremely difficult.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I also wonder whether it helps to put the space syntax example in if it has no real relation to it.
>>>>
>>>> I would say axial lines, although artificially generated based on visibility initially or walkability/drivebility recently, bear the same scaling property as city artifacts. This is the major reason that they are used for demo purposes.
>>>>
>>>>       Scaling seems a generic property and may therefore also 'hide' in the axial plans, but for me personally both the dotted pattern and the space syntax one do not convince me I'm as a viewer affected by scaling.
>>>>
>>>> It is true that scaling is a kind of hidden order, rather than surface order (c.f., http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.1112). In fact, I did not see it until I finished the case of Manhattan and Paris, and I thought Manhattan has no scaling property. It is therefore not surprising to me that you cannot see it, or you are not convinced, but it is something objective. However, I am convinced you will see if you put some efforts on it.
>>>>
>>>>       I couldn't quite work out what you think you are showing with the pictures and think it might possibly help to use the actual physical artefacts as examples rather than these more abstract schemata. Nonetheless, at the same time, the more concrete you get, the further away from a collective perception (if there is such a thing?) one seems to get also. It brings it back to the individual.
>>>> As I said, I could have used named streets or natural streets for the case studies, but the spirit is the same. That is, the largest distinguished from many small ones constitute the image of the city. Surely there is a collective perception like London bridge or oxford street.
>>>>
>>>> I think regarding the example of streets, you probably need another, specifically appropriate concept of it (neither axial nor named) to argue for relevance to perception. Unless there is a strong theoretical argument why named or axial streets are appropriate for making the jump from an individual to collective mental maps. I realise this is not about space syntax, but I do wonder whether this questioning doesn't again get caught in similar social theoretical caveats as space syntax.
>>>>
>>>> The jump from an individual to collective mental maps can be supported by the wisdom-of-crowds theory (see above link). Scaling is such a universal law, existing in nature and in society, certainly existed in axial lines or space syntax. This is probably something that the space syntax community could take a step forward towards this direction.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If your question simply was: could scaling play a role in the generating of mental maps, then I think I'm still in need of a better explanation as to how.
>>>> As to how, I have shown it in the paper. Simply put, rank things geometrically, topologically, semantically and/or combining the three, and conduct the head/tail breaks, then things are put into different hierarchical levels. The largest are part of the mental map.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This how will only make sense with strong theoretical arguments for the units or concepts you select to demonstrate its existence in the city landscape on.
>>>>
>>>> I would use the wisdom-of-crowds theory as the theoretical foundation. What do you think?
>>>>
>>>> Again, thanks for the very stimulating questions, and I enjoyed very much the conversations.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers.
>>>>
>>>> Bin
>>>>
>>>> Good luck!
>>>>
>>>> Benjamin
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my Windows Phone
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> From: Bin Jiang<mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>> Sent: 21/12/2012 03:03
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>> Subject: Re: The image of the city
>>>>
>>>> Alan, and all,
>>>>
>>>> I just had a good sleeping, so I can continue discussions with my fresh mind; see comments below.
>>>> On 12/20/2012 11:15 PM, Penn, Alan wrote:
>>>> OK - let me try something for the sake of argument  (with no real empirical justification of course:-).
>>>>
>>>> Scaling phenomena tend to refer to those relationships between two variables where either one or both are considered linear on a logarithmic scale - so for instance the largest something and the second largest are an order of magnitude different in size as are the second and third largest, etc.
>>>> Yes, often scaling refers to allometry, e.g., relationship of body size to shape. In this regard, Phil Steadman and Mike Batty did some interesting work. It also refers to somethings with a power law distribution, in which case, one single variable rather than two variables in the former case. For example, in terms of street connectivity, there are far more less-connected streets than well-connected streets; in terms of building heights, there are far more low buildings than high buildings. The traditional definition of scaling is restricted to a power law distribution only, but my paper (http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.1112) relaxed this definition to include lognormal, exponential and their associations such as power law with exponential cutoff. My relaxed definition is pretty simple: scaling is a recurring structure of far more small things than large one. One simply uses head/tail breaks (http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.2801) to partition things (relying on one single variable) into multiple hierarchical levels.
>>>>
>>>> It seems reasonable that the experiencing subject might notice order of magnitude differences between different situations in the world and so possibly learn associations between pairs of variables  of this kind.
>>>> As a reminder, and as mentioned above, I was talking about one single variable, rather than allometry, since perception of a single variable things (e.g., street connectivity or building height) is simpler than perception of two variables relationship.
>>>> It is perhaps less obvious that they would notice differences between normally distributed variables?
>>>> Yes, my point was if things (or more precisely city artifacts) are normally distributed (lack of the scaling), one can hardly form the image of the city.
>>>> So let us consider space syntax 'intelligibility'  - the correlation between local and global measures of the graph. If one or both of the measures are highly skewed (and both tend to be) then the correlation may be learnable if it exists.
>>>> According to my experience, local measures (like connectivity) tend to be highly skewed, but not global measures.
>>>> This perhaps offers a mechanism through which part of Lynch's concept of legibility might be realised and where 'scaling' would be useful characteristic of the underlying variables. It is just a thought.
>>>> Yes, you are right if you were talking about one single variable. Both Lynch's imageability and legibility can be quantified with respect to "scaling". For example, I would say imageability or legibility of a dead city is zero (c.f. Figure 4 of this paper http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1209/1209.1112.pdf)
>>>>       The problem might be that scaling phenomena tend to be ordered purely on the dimension of interest- largest, second, third etc. and not in the subject's experiential order which must be according to the order of connections in the network. Perhaps with bivariate correlations and in the long run the association to be learned des not depend on the experiential order?
>>>> As a kind reminder, I was talking things or order of things with a single variable.
>>>>
>>>> Alan
>>>>
>>>> Bin - I think it would be worth reviewing the following papers which may be relevant to your argument:
>>>> This is one comment I received from someone else early. I did not integrate the interesting work, since I was talking about one single variable things. And importantly, my paper was NOT about space syntax in particular. I am sorry for creating this impression that this paper is about space syntax, since axial lines were used in the case studies. As I explicitly and deliberately mentioned just at the beginning of the case studies (http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.1112), axial lines were used as a proxy for city artifacts that demonstrate the scaling property. I could have used streets (either named streets or natural streets) for the case studies.
>>>>
>>>> Many thanks Alan for the stimulating questions. Feel free to get back to me if any doubts.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers.
>>>>
>>>> Bin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Kim, YO and Penn, A (2004) Linking the spatial syntax of cognitive maps to the spatial syntax of the environment.<http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/278/><http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/278/> ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR , 36 (4) 483 - 504. 10.1177/0013916503261384<http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013916503261384><http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013916503261384>.
>>>>
>>>> (Also Young KIm'a PhD thesis which lends support for feature recognition related to scale.)
>>>>
>>>> Carvalho R, Penn A (2004) . Scaling and universality in the micro-structure of urban space.PHYSICA A vol. 332, 539-547.
>>>> 10.1016/j.physa.2003.10.024<http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2003.10.024><http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2003.10.024>
>>>>
>>>> Hillier, B. and Iida, S. (2005) Network and psychological effects in urban movement. In: Cohn, A.G. and Mark, D.M., (eds.) Proceedings of Spatial Information Theory: International Conference, COSIT 2005,Ellicottsville, N.Y., U.S.A.,September 14-18, 2005. (pp. pp. 475-490). Springer-Verlag: Berlin, Germany  http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/1232/
>>>>
>>>> Also Nick Dalton's PhD thesis on point intelligibility and recognisable urban areas.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 20 Dec 2012, at 17:23, David Seamon <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>>
>>>>       wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Bin,
>>>>
>>>> I looked at this new link but, from what I can tell, the article is the same as the one at the earlier link.
>>>>
>>>> I have to say I don't understand what you're arguing. You really don't offer a convincing justification for why this scalar focus is so important (note your justification is a brief two sentences that really aren't clear in what they mean!). As I said to you in the last email, I really don't think one's "conscious" image of a place is that crucial in knowing that place or traversing that place.
>>>>
>>>> Phenomenologically, what is needed is a thorough developmental study of how people, experientially, come to know a new place and how an unrelated set of environmental elements come to cohere in some organized understanding of place. But, still, below all this, is the power of body-subject, which you provide no context for whatsoever.
>>>>
>>>> I am sorry but I am really not sure what you are arguing makes sense. And I especially don't see your jump to using the axial maps and the red "lines" as somehow the scalar mechanism. I agree that, in Lynch's research, paths were the dominant elements for most people, and the paths usually "imaged" were the most integrated pathways. But I still think that is "after-the-fact" knowledge in relation to what successful traversal of a place is experientially (and thus phenomenologically).
>>>>
>>>> I hope you'll read my GEOGRAPHY OF THE LIFEWORLD, because it was my first effort to point out the considerable weaknesses of any cognitive approach to spatial behavior and environmental conception. The book is available in its entirety at my university website. The link is:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.arch.ksu.edu/seamon/books_intro.htm
>>>>
>>>> Sorry not to be more positive about your work. I just think you should be careful and not spend a lot of time on a "theory" that may not be accurate.
>>>>
>>>> David Seamon
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "Bin Jiang" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>> Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 9:56:17 AM
>>>> Subject: [SPACESYNTAX] The image of the city
>>>>
>>>> Hi, I thought this paper might be of interest to some of you:
>>>> http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.3703
>>>>
>>>> With this, I am humbly looking forward to your comments and criticisms
>>>> in particular.
>>>>
>>>> Happy holidays to you all!
>>>>
>>>> Bin
>>>>
>>>>


-- 
--------------------------------------------------------
Bin Jiang
Division of Geomatics, KTH Research School
Department of Technology and Built Environment
University of Gävle, SE-801 76 Gävle, Sweden
Phone: +46-26-64 8901    Fax: +46-26-64 8758
Email: [log in to unmask]  Web: http://fromto.hig.se/~bjg/
--------------------------------------------------------
European Associate Editor
Computers, Environment and Urban Systems: An International Journal

ICA Commission: https://sites.google.com/site/commissionofica/
Geomatics Program: https://sites.google.com/site/geomaticsprogram/
ICA Workshop: https://sites.google.com/site/icaworkshop2013/
SENSORCITY: https://sites.google.com/site/sensorcityproject/

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