IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirb/v39y2012i1p12-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Studying Cities to Learn about Minds: Some Possible Implications of Space Syntax for Spatial Cognition

Author

Listed:
  • Bill Hillier

    (Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, England)

Abstract

What can we learn of the human mind by examining its products? The city is a case in point. Since the beginning of cities human ideas about them have been dominated by geometric ideas, and the real history of cities has always oscillated between the geometric and the ‘organic’. Set in the context of the suggestion from cognitive neuroscience that we impose more geometric order on the world than it actually possesses, and intriguing question arises: what is the role of the geometric intuition in how we understand cities and how we create them? Here I argue, drawing on space syntax research which has sought to link the detailed spatial morphology of cities to observable functional regularities, that all cities, the organic as well as the geometric, are pervasively ordered by geometric intuition, so that neither the forms of the cities nor their functioning can be understood without insight into their distinctive and pervasive emergent geometrical forms. The city is often said to be the creation of economic and social processes, but here it is argued that these processes operate within an envelope of geometric possibility defined by the human mind in its interaction with spatial laws that govern the relations between objects and spaces in the ambient world.

Suggested Citation

  • Bill Hillier, 2012. "Studying Cities to Learn about Minds: Some Possible Implications of Space Syntax for Spatial Cognition," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 39(1), pages 12-32, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:39:y:2012:i:1:p:12-32
    DOI: 10.1068/b34047t
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/b34047t
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/b34047t?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Golledge, Reginald G., 1995. "Path Selection and Route Preference in Human Navigation: A Progress Report," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt9jn5r27v, University of California Transportation Center.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Isti Hidayati & Claudia Yamu & Wendy Tan, 2019. "The Emergence of Mobility Inequality in Greater Jakarta, Indonesia: A Socio-Spatial Analysis of Path Dependencies in Transport–Land Use Policies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-18, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chengyu Sun & Bauke de Vries, 2013. "Width: An Indispensable Factor in Selection of Emergency Exit Door," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 40(1), pages 63-77, February.
    2. Manley, Ed & Cheng, Tao, 2018. "Exploring the role of spatial cognition in predicting urban traffic flow through agent-based modelling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 14-23.
    3. M. Teimouri & M.R. Delavar & S.H. Chavoshi & M.R. Malek & N. Van de Weghe & T. Neutens & H.H. Hochmair, 2015. "Accommodating user preferences in ad hoc shared ride trip planning using GIS," Transportation Planning and Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(7), pages 816-831, October.
    4. Pat Burnett, 2008. "Variable Decision Strategies, Rational Choice, and Situation-Related Travel Demand," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(9), pages 2259-2281, September.
    5. Kwan, Mei-Po & Golledge, Reginald G. & Speigle, Jon, 1996. "Information Representation for Driver Decision Support Systems," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt7zz0q3mw, University of California Transportation Center.
    6. Jonathan L. Gifford, 2011. "Psychology and Rationality in User Behavior: The Case of Scarcity," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 27, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Kwan, Mei-Po & Golledge, Reginald G., 1996. "Computational Process Modeling of Disaggregate Travel Behavior," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt91f574zq, University of California Transportation Center.
    8. Mondschein, Andrew Samuel, 2013. "The Personal City: The Experiential, Cognitive Nature of Travel and Activity and Implications for Accessibility," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt7014d9cg, University of California Transportation Center.
    9. Hartwig H Hochmair, 2005. "Investigating the Effectiveness of the Least-Angle Strategy for Wayfinding in Unknown Street Networks," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 32(5), pages 673-691, October.
    10. Guo, Zhan, 2011. "Mind the map! The impact of transit maps on path choice in public transit," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 625-639, August.
    11. Alasdair Turner & Alan Penn, 2002. "Encoding Natural Movement as an Agent-Based System: An Investigation into Human Pedestrian Behaviour in the Built Environment," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 29(4), pages 473-490, August.
    12. Mondschein, Andrew Samuel, 2012. "The Personal City: The Experimental, Cognitive Nature of Travel and Activity and Implications for Accessibility," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt67d5w48s, University of California Transportation Center.
    13. Zhou, Jack & Golledge, Reginald, 1999. "A GPS-based Analysis Household Travel Behavior," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt3zf8h075, University of California Transportation Center.
    14. Golledge, Reginald G. & Zhou, Jianyu, 2001. "GPS-Based Tracking of Daily Activities," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt9jb438r2, University of California Transportation Center.
    15. Golledge, Reginald G & Zhou, Jack, 1999. "A GPS-based Analysis of Household Travel Behavior," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt3hg1f5nb, University of California Transportation Center.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:39:y:2012:i:1:p:12-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.