The Academic Research Community PublicationIEREK PressCity Image Between Gated and Open Residential AreasKotbGhaidaa1Political Science, Future University in EgyptAbstract
City image and self identity are two interrelated notions. Self identity, also referred to as urban related identity, is not solely derived from the physical characteristics of an urban space, but, consists of the social construction founded in the perception of individuals and groups (Lalli & Ploger, 1991). The relationship of the individual with a place is essential as place and space shape human experiences (Chen, 2012). With the trend of gated residential areas emerging in large cities such as Cairo and Alexandria in the late 90s creating a spatial discontinuity and urban fragmentation, this research is examining how open and gated urban residential areas shape place image of New Cairo’s Third Settlement residents.
Due to the new trend of gated residential areas, emerging in the new cities around Grand Cairo Region, this research is interested in examining how the residents in Third Settlement view their place. Ten participants have been asked to draw a sketch map describing their home; neighborhood (whether it is open or gated residential area) and their district (The Third Settlement) followed by semi-constructive interviews to understand their spatial perspective.
The closer the relationship between a person and his space, the more powerful his place shapes him (Xiangming Chen, 2018). In Egypt, there has been an urban revolution in the late 90s which led to the emergence of new trends in urban spaces. The trend of gated communities or gated residential areas have emerged in large cities such as Cairo and Alexandria, as an urban space that provide westernized, relaxed, healthy lifestyle away from the hectic traffic and pollution in the center, as well as a social image and prestige relating its residents with a social class and an economic level. According to Blakely and Snyder (1997) Gated communities are:
Residential areas with restricted access in which normally public spaces are privatized. They are security developments with designated perimeters, usually walls or fences, and controlled entrances that are intended to prevent penetration by non-residents. They include new developments and older areas retrofitted with gates and fences, and they are found from the inner cities to the exurbs and from the richest neighborhoods to the poorest.
(Blakely and Snyder, 1997)
The growth of gated communities in several cities in the 1990s attracted the research interests of social scientists. In a comparative study conducted by G. Wilson-Doegenes (2000), the author explored the difference between gated and open residential areas in accordance with issues like sense of community, crime, and fear of crime in Newport Beach and Los Angeles, California. Based on the results, the author argued compellingly that high-income gated community residents reported a significantly lower sense of community and place attachment, with no significant difference in actual crime rate as compared to their non-gated counterparts. While Blakely and Snyder (1997) affirmed that gated residential areas fragments their social and economic fabric.
It is difficult to remain neutral to the impacts of gated residential areas since they are now a feature of the urban landscape in most cities around the world, and they serve to highlight values and opinions about urban life and city development (Roitmann, 2009). Hence, this research tries to examine how residents, dwelling in gated and open residential areas, perceive the image of their city with the presence of physical and social fragmentation. "Third Settlement" have been chosen due to the diversity of social and economic levels as well as the presence of different types of settlements. This research focus on two open residential areas: Shabab and Zelzal housing, both created by the state and inhabited by low and middle class income; and Arabella and Diplomats compound both gated residential areas created by the private sector.
There is room for exploring further this topic as it provides a value-added theoretical contribution with insights about how urbanization is changing Egyptian society and individuals. Most of the research that has been carried out in Egypt was to portray the impact of gated communities on urban development (Yousry, 2010; Metwally and Abdallah 2013), urban segregation (Gauch, 2000, Khalifa and Hamhaber, 2014) and urban sustainability (Landman 2000, Metwally 2006). While the socio-spatial dimension of gated residential areas remain unexplored due to the lack of research in urban sociology and human geography. Finally, supported by field work, this research will contribute to the empirical comprehension and knowledge on how Third Settlement residents view their neighborhood.
Lynch’s Place Image
The process of building an image or identity is interrelated. Lalli (1992) argues that a certain vision usually accompanies a space while Lynch (1960) affirms that the image of a place is composed of 1) meaning, 2) Identity and 3) a structure. In his skilled written book The image of the city , Lynch (1960) emphasizes the importance of looking at the image of the city as “{a} product both, of immediate sensation, and of the memory of past experience” (1960: 4). This is related to how an image is produced which is a two-way process between the resident and his/her place. The place provides the physical settings while the resident selects and associates these physical settings to a set of memories or symbolic experiences.
According to the author, an image of a place is related to the set of identification a resident forms, distinguishing it from other places. The structure of a place is usually related to the spatial relations or patterns a resident shape and finally, the image of a place commonly evokes a personal meaning whether it is emotional or practical. He later than proceed to raise the common physical components of a city or a place as following: Paths, edges, nodes, landmarks and districts.
Paths: are the channels were people move, they may be streets, sidewalk, canals, railroad...etc. Their importance varies according to the resident's degree of familiarity to a specific place. For instance, if a street is marked by a certain activity or special use, residents will normally relate it with this significance. Furthermore, some spatial features like the narrowness or the width of a street might also be a significant mark.
Edges: are the boundaries or the limit of a space. These edges might be spatial barriers however, they are essential in the process of organizing a city. It could be a water surface or a road. Edges might be the boundaries to two different areas, which in this sense matches perfectly the rupture created by the walls of a gated residential area. However, Lynch argues that strong edges might not be impassable as “Many edges are uniting seams, rather than isolating barriers, and it is interesting to see the differences in effect.” (lynch, 1960: 65)
Nodes: are the strategic points of which a person could enter: it could be a square or a bus station. They might look small in the map but to some residents, they carry a lot of importance. The nodes are usually a point of junction. It could carry a symbolic meaning and importance to the dwellers of a space.
Landmarks: are the significant marks that the resident rarely enters. They are usually the used clues to identify an area the more a place becomes familiar. Landmarks as Lynch described them could be the point of reference to an outsider who is not familiar with the place.
Districts: are “sections of the city, conceived of as having two-dimensional extent, which the observer mentally enters “inside of,” and which are recognizable as having some common, identifying character.” (1960: 41). Lynch emphasize how districts and its boundaries are socially constructed. In his interviews, some participants were classing districts according to the class income. Hence, the image of the boundaries of a district could be hard and definite or malleable and undefined. Another interesting point in how Lynch views districts is the edges within a district as “they may set limits to a district, and may reinforce its identity, but they apparently have less to do with constituting it.” (Lynch, 1960: 70). Thus, this type of boundaries could aggravate the fragmentation of a city due to the barriers of the districts.
Lastly, Lynch stresses on the importance of the image quality and the interrelations existing between the previous mentioned elements in shaping a place image. He described four stages of images quality of which we can see clearly in the sketch maps drawn by the generous participants of this study. The approach done by Lynch (1960) will be of great help to provide an understanding of the participants sketch maps where they drew how they see their home, their residential area and their district. The structure and the categorization made by him are the reference for the analysis of the image drawn by the participants.
Third Settlement Image
There is no Image of the city but a pattern of interrelated images that guide and determine appropriate responses to the physical world.
(Proshansky, 1978: 163)
The image of a place is related to the set of identification a resident forms, distinguishing it from other places while the structure of a place is usually related to the spatial relations or patterns a resident shape which usually evokes a personal meaning whether it is emotional or practical. Lynch (1960) stresses on the importance of the image quality and the interrelations existing between the elements of place image and the process of shaping a place image and personal meaning and urban related identity.
For the purpose of examining how residents in gated residential areas (GRAs) and open residential areas (ORAs) view their place, participants were asked to sketch a map of their home, compound in the case of gated residential areas and neighborhoods in the case of open residential areas and finally the Third Settlement as it is the common district.
In this part, we will focus on how residents of Third Settlement reviewed different aspects concerning the image of their environment. The paper will start with a general observation regarding their district, the elements drawn in their sketch maps and the papers used, then proceed to a more detailed observation concerning how were the streets, blocks, markers, nodes and home were illustrated in both GRA and ORA residents.
Observation
Districts are sections of the city, conceived of as having two-dimensional extent, which the observer mentally enters ‘inside of’, and which are recognizable as having some common, identifying character.
(Lynch, 1960: 41)
Lynch emphasizes how districts and their boundaries are socially constructed. Thus, It could be reasonably argued that most of the interviewed participants living in open residential areas are more aware of their district. Most of them when asked where they live replied immediately “Third Settlement” with different nuances to where they exactly they live in Third Settlement. While on the other hand, residents of gated residential areas in Third Settlement expressed an ignorance of their district and a clear estrangement when asked where their gated residences exist with expressions like: “I don’t really know the Third Settlement”, “What is the difference between Fifth Settlement and Third settlement?”, “ I don’t have the Third Settlement in my cognitive perspective”, “is Arabella a part from Katameya or Third Settlement? [...] isn’t a part of Fifth Settlement?”. It appears to be that most of the answers of GRAs residents classify their residence as part of the Fifth Settlement.
This could be a result of how Fifth Settlement is portrayed in the usual dialect or cognition. The Fifth Settlement in Cairo consists only of several private neighborhoods or as we call them in this research paper: gated residential areas. Thus, the urban fabric of the Fifth Settlement involves only GRAs, hence one can see the confusion resulted in participants dwelling in GRAs as they consider themselves part of this urban fabric instead of Third Settlement fabric which consists of private and public real estate and gated and open residential areas with a various colorful social fabric reflecting most of the income levels in Cairo. It is worth to mention that most of the participants referred to New Cairo as Tagamo’. When we analyse this use of wording, we have to understand the background of it: New Cairo as a city was originally built to inhabit five settlements (settlement=Tagamo’) : the Second and the Fourth Settlement in west of the 90s street (which is one of the main streets in New Cairo) and the First, Third and Fifth Settlement to the east of 90s street.
However, due to the constant changes made in the master plan of the New Cairo city (Ghonimi, 2010), the Second and the Fourth Settlements have been eliminated while the rest of the settlements remained the same without changing the names. The urban management planning of the New Cairo City has changed several times through the years which contributed to the confusion of some residents (Nasser, 2013). Henceforth, instead of referring to a specific settlement like the First Settlement (Tagamo’ awal) or Third Settlement (Tagamo’ Thaleth) or Fifth Settlement (Tagamo’ Khames), the residents used the word Settlement (Tagamo’) to refer to their place of residence. One is tempted to see how the Egyptians tend to shorten the word when they use it constantly in their daily life (Huffington Post, 2010), this is observed when they refer to the FaceBook as “Face”, WhatsApp as “Whats” and other different words. In this case, instead of paying attention to the peculiarities of each different settlement, the residents of New Cairo City refer to it as Tagamo’ as it contains all the settlements mentioned above. The use of the wording contributed to the suppression of the differences between the different settlements existing in New Cairo, which may explain how most of the GRAs residents are confused of where their residents exist.
However, some GRAs residents referred to their place as Katameya instead of Third Settlement. It is worth to mention that some ORA residents did the same with only one difference: they knew clearly that Katameya is in Third Settlement, while GRA residents did not refer at all to the notion of Third Settlement and settled for Katameya only.
According to one participant this was due to “the signs which are saying Katameya right and Katameya left. So all of this is Katameya [...] Arabella is Katameya”. Thus, one is tempted to conclude that due to the signals and the general conception of the place, the Third Settlement has not been recognized by the gated residential area residence unlike the residents of ORAs.
Sketch maps
In this part, we will focus on three interrelated elements one can observe while viewing the sketch maps drawn by the participants: papers used, elements drawn and the structure as a whole.
Worthy of mention that participants were proposed to draw on more than one paper, however, open residential area residents used only one paper grouping all the elements they wanted to illustrate (only one case demanded two papers, so she can use one of them as a draft), while the gated residential area residents used this opportunity and took advantage of multiple papers with a maximum number of three papers (figure 1). The usage of these papers were different, two of them used it to draw a top view map with focus on streets and squares while another case used three papers to draw their home, their favorite place in their GRA and the main places they associate their surroundings with.
Sketch map of a gated residential area resident
This seems to be of a great significance as one might assume that there is a direct correlation between the increasing number of pages and the number of elements drawn. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the sketch maps drawn.
The participants living in open residential area have drawn higher number of elements in their map with a maximum of 16 elements (Figure 2) while the gated residential area participants drew relatively fewer elements with a 12 elements as the highest number of drawn elements.
Bearing in mind that the elements drawn in both cases were of significant differences as the ORAs maps were focusing on the elements providing essential services such as the mosques, markets, medical centers, police station and schools while on the other hand, the GRA maps where locating putting more weights on elements providing complementary services such as shopping malls, Tennis Paddle and lakes with an honorable mention to schools, universities and medical center (only in one sketch map). This was reflected on the size of the elements drawn in the map and arguably the importance of each element. The size of the elements in the GRA maps were relatively big comparing to the tiny size of which the ORA elements have been drawn. This is worth to be analyzed and observed deeply with reference to the consumption culture and its domination on different level of incomes which will be elaborated subsequently.
Last but not Least, there is an element of truth in how the structure of the sketch maps was different in the GRAs than ORAs. The structure of which the residents of gated residential areas illustrated their maps tends to be more rigid with strict lines and clear boundaries showing the streets and the squares clearly. On the other hand, the structure of the open residential area appears to be more fluid and moving, the boundaries are less visible and the streets and squares tend to be complementary elements not essential (contrary to the ORA maps). The elements are characterized by their numerous number and tiny size, the elements are not restricted by any limits and the openness of the structure appears visibly clear. The blocks are only shown in the drawing of buildings such as malls and medical centers; or places surrounded by walls such as the mosque or the university.
It could be reasonably argued that the rigidity of the structure is due to the movement of the residents, while on one hand the residents of open residential areas usually move on foot on their area, on the other hand, the gated residential areas moves by car and can seldom access any desired place on foot due to different reasons: whether the fear of sexual harassment as expressed of one participant or the far distance.
Urban Related Image
According to Lynch (1960), the urban fabric is composed of paths, edges, nodes, landmarks and districts. For the author, paths: are the channels were people move, they may be streets, sidewalk, canals, railroad...etc.; while edges: are the boundaries or the limit of a space; nodes: are the strategic points of which a person could pass by or transit in: it could be a square or a bus station; furthermore, landmarks: are the significant marks that the resident rarely enters; and finally, districts: are places with identified character of which the inhabitant of a city is aware when he/she enters it. It is widely acknowledged that the classification of the urban fabric made by Lynch is quite revealing to how residents view their place, however in this research paper we will be guided by his veteran work and create a different classification. This different classification is due to the different definitions he made, which seems, in the context of this research as rigid. The rigidity of the definitions made by Lynch (1960) lies in their appropriation to the context of the study of three cities examined by the author in his book. Hence, for him, Landmarks are "unenterable" places, nonetheless of the possibility of its entrance; in this study, we will use the word Markers instead, so we can eliminate the definition used by Lynch. Furthermore, the district according to his definition is consistent of an unconscious framing of an area of which a resident is aware when he/she enters it, due to its particular characteristics. In this research, the districts were replaced by the word Blocks due to the shape of it as well as the clear framing of the space in the drawings; moreover, the word blocks signify a rupture of the urban fabric so it includes additionally the notion employed by Lynch as “edges”. Furthermore, we announce that there are some elements which have not been emphasized through the interviews such as paths, hence we have not included it in the analysis. Thus, according to this new lexical choice, in this research paper we are going to demonstrate how gated and open residential area residents view the image of their place according to the following aspects: blocks, nodes, markers and home.
Blocks
In this research, the word blocks refers to the framed sketched object or the group of objects. It is related to Lynch’s (1960) notion of “edges” and “districts” as it entails the places where an inhabitant of the city is well aware when he/she enters; and also a genre of rupture of the urban fabric.
The blocks meant different connotations in the case of gated and open residential areas. In the GRA, residents illustrated mainly blocks or numerous framed shaped object (figure 3).
As we mentioned before, the structure of the sketch maps in the case of GRAs were more rigid and characterized by the presence of clear barriers or limits. The lines were clear as a mark of separation and hence, the blocks were illustrated as an element of continuity with this hard-line structure. It appears to be that most of the sketch maps for residents of gated residence showed other compounds, shopping malls or commercial centers as main elements in the drawings. Two main malls were featured in half of the participants maps: Cairo Festival City and Point 90, while other places such as schools, universities and other commercial centers like WaterWay, Downtown New Cairo and Arabella Mall had honorable mention and finally, places which provide essential services such as medical protection and services buildings were drawn in only one map.
On the other hand, for the participants living in open residential areas, the blocks were the irregular items in the maps as it is characterized by a visible degree of openness without clear limits which makes the blocks easily attract the attention (Figure 4). The blocks identified were referring to hospitals or medical centers, shopping malls relatively small compared to the ones mentioned in the GRAs maps and market. One is tempted to observe how the blocks reflect the image of the residents. In the case of GRA residents, one participant put it clear: “I have the feeling that there are more places in Tagamo’ other than the ones I’ve mentioned, but it’s really a compound area. So I can point the compounds I regularly visit: Diyar, Lake View, Katameya height, The Village….etc”. New Cairo and the surroundings of his place are places with fractured social fabric and lack of continuity, this is mirrored in how most of the residents of GRAs illustrated their image of the city. These blocks may be considerate as an indicator of difficult accessibility without means of transport as you have to go rounds around the many gates built in the city to enter a place as a result of the walls spread all over the city. The contrary was clear in the open residential area maps. The lack of barriers and openness of the space seems to be an indicator of the accessibility of most of the important services or the services that matters. It is also worth to mention how the meanings of the blocks are different in both of the cases which takes us to the next point.
Markers
Markers are the signs which matter to the resident: places which could have significant meaning to the resident or of a significant importance. Markers could be similar to what Lynch (1960) described as landmarks: significant marks that the resident rarely enter and are usually the used clues to identify an area. There is an element of truth in how markers are used to be the clues for describing an area to someone, as one participant put it: “I drew these places because it’s the very first thing that comes to my mind when I’m describing the way to someone.[...] So it’s kind of easy instructions”. However, it is arguable to identify landmarks as impenetrable places and this is the reason why we are using different wording to eliminate the confusion.
We can easily observe that the markers drawn in the gated residential areas are limited in shopping centers, other compounds, with honorable mention to universities, schools, mosques and only in one case were the medical services mentioned. In the open residential area maps, we can observe other types of market clearly indicated such as markets, charity foundations, police station, medical centers, schools and universities. When we analyze, it is tempting to see how the markers drawn reflect a consumption culture. However, this consumption culture differs from residents in gated residential areas than the residents in open residential areas. The services drawn in the GRA maps could be classified as complementary luxurious services, while on the contrary, the services in the ORAs were indicating essential services necessary for the daily life such as markets to buy groceries, hospital and medical centers for the medical care. Hence, these sketch maps reflect how each of the residents of gated and open residential areas carry on their personal and social lifestyle. Furthermore, It could be reasonably argued that the markers which GRA residents indicated are mirroring how they see their city as a block city, whether commercial block or residence blocks, each block is separated as one of the GRA participant claimed: “there is nothing really communal in Tagamo’ [...] I can’t really see anything else that could carry the social package of the ‘commonality’”. On the other hand, the maps of ORA residents seems to be in the reach of hand, even if the distance could be far, which was expressed by one of the participants as the following: “The atmosphere in Arabella is cool as well. But accessibility wise, here is way better, I mean if any of your family wants anything it is easily accessible: doctors, pharmacies… all easy. You have the accommodation that makes you comfortable.” Which takes us to the next point, how moving somehow shaped this place image to both gated and open residential area residents.
Nodes
We can easily observe the difference of the structure in both open and gated residential space. It is tempting to see how this pattern is different due to the different type of movement both parties have. When interviewed, most of the GRA residents own a car unlike the ORA residents which use the public transport regularly (In one case an ORA possessed a car but preferred not to use it as the gas prices in Egypt increased and gave it to his mother).
Nodes are defined as the points at which lines or pathways intersect or branch. It could be a central or connecting point. According to Lynch (1960), nodes are the strategic points of which a person could pass by or transit in: it could be a square which a person regularly cross or a bus station.
Nodes have been portrayed differently in the maps. For the GRA residents, one could easily see the squares as one of the main features of the map (Figure 6).
In this case, one may reasonably argue that the nodes for the gated residential area residents are the squares. When asked why did they draw squares, the answers were varying between: “two squares the one of Mountain View and the one close to Shell’s gas station because it’s where all the traffic is” and “The square of Mountain View because that’s where I always pass daily to go to work, so it’s kind of big marked point”. Thus, one is tempted to conclude that due to the constant movement with a car, the nodes for the GRA residents are the squares. The movement by car is shaping how the residents see their city, according to the sketch maps of gated residential area residents, the participants tend to look on the city with a holistic point of view, discarding the small important places which could be of significant importance, this is due to how the rapidity of movement which prohibit them from noticing the small shops or relatively small places unlike the residents of open residential area. Furthermore, it is worth to mention that streets are remarkably visible in the gated residential area maps unlike the ORA maps, the reason of this might be due to the holistic view and the movement by car. It is also important to relate it with traffic as it put more weight on the driver as one of the participant said it:“I will put a warning sign on the 90 street as I’m a little traumatized of its traffic”.
As for the ORA residents, we can observe in their sketch maps that they have illustrated the small shops, market, and the elements which are important to them. However, the nodes for them were not squares, they were bus station as it is they mean to meet “the rest of the world” as one of the participant described it. Another participant described it as the following:
“This is the bus station. It’s really important because it’s my portal to anywhere outside Tagamo’. I take the bus that goes directly to my mom from this bus station. It’s the best thing. I really like this bus station.”
It is interesting to see how most of the participant in the ORA wrote “out of Zone”, “Downtown and the rest of the world” or described their relation with the outside of Tagamo’. Some of GRA residents expressed how they are content as they can find what they need in Tagamo’ and don’t have to go out of the territory, however, ORA residents expressed a more complex relation as half of them did not need to leave New Cairo unless it is to meet their relatives as they work in the same area and all of their need get satisfied within the territory, while the other half works outside of New Cairo. Both of half of ORA residents expressed how their relation with outer Tagamo’ is important. Thus, we may reasonably argue that nodes for ORA residents tend to have more importance as it is represented as the mean to communicate with the outer New Cairo. As for GRA residents, nodes like squares and streets represent merely urban planning with significant attention to the traffic condition.
To conclude, the nodes were illustrated differently in both cases. This difference tends to be a result of the type of movement each of the participant have in the city. One thus may conclude, that the movement by car, which appears to be more frequent in GRA residents, provides a holistic point of view concentrating on nodes and streets. On the other hand, the movement on foot with necessity of public transport makes nodes, like the bus station, essential for the residents of open residential areas.
<bold id="s-0c44ade3e068">Home</bold>
Home has been drawn in different sizes and different shapes in the sketch maps. It often came with a heart shaped icon stuck to it or the actual drawing of it. In the case of gated residential area sketch maps, home was illustrated differently in each map.
One participant wanted to draw his home with the smallest detail in a separate paper because he liked how the idea sounds and liked how each detail matters for him (Figure 5); a female participant marked her home by the famous saying “home sweet home”; while another participant referred to his place using the third person, this is interesting to analyze because he did not refer to his place using the possessive pronoun, instead he preferred abstracting it using his name as an outsider (Figure 3)… lastly but not least, the last participant drew home with a heart shaped icon. In the open residential area map, two participant drew their place as part of the illustrated fabric, the size of their home was matching the rest of the drawn elements. Another participant decided to draw her home with some details and bigger size taking ⅙th of the drawing paper (Figure 6). This portrayed home as an important component of the drawing. Finally, the last participant decided to draw an abstract design of how she sees the overall area with three buildings and four cars, this case is specifically interesting as the female participant was not allowed to leave the house without her husband permission and thus it is precisely compelling to examine how her attachment with their place was formed which will be examined in detail in the process chapter specifically the continuity sub chapter.
It is compellingly interesting to see how each individual illustrated his/ her home, each case gives a deep insight about the place attachment expressed towards the place. For instance, one could argue that in the case of the participant drawing the home relatively small to other elements in her map is not paying much attention to her home or might not be attached to her home as much as she is attached to the area or the city as whole which has a reference in what she was saying in her interview.
Furthermore, the participant which referred to his home with the third person might view himself as an outsider in his place… etc.
However, we need to bear in mind that these comments above are merely speculations as we can not provide a simplistic generalization. One may reasonably argue that each case is particular and provide a different process of place attachment. Thus, we will attempt to analyze this thoroughly in the process chapter.
Conclusion
In this research, we examined the place image drawn by the participants from both gated and open residential areas. We started by a general observation focusing on how the elements and the structure of the place have been illustrated in addition to other material notes such as the use of paper. The results showed that the structure differed from the sketch maps drawn by GRA residents and ORA residents.
As the structure drawn by GRA resident was more rigid as their visual understanding of the space based on their movement by car and their few elements were scattered, drawn in a big size as if it to compensate the lack of numerous content; whereas the structure of the maps drawn by ORA residents was more fluent with an absence of urban planning and paths, the elements were numerous and scattered and drawn relatively with a small size to inhabit their wide variety.
Furthermore, we moved to a more detailed observation regarding the markers identified by the residents revealing a tendency to a consumerist culture, the nodes and how important it was in the process of being attached to the outer world for the residents of ORA, homes and how it was illustrated (size, drawing style and affect towards it). The blocks and the district and finally the paths. The main structure of this research paper was upon the reference of Lynch (1960)’s book which gave the main headline and provided the needed guidelines for this chapter.
Finally, one may reasonably argue that this visions and sketch maps drawn by the residents are significantly important in the process of place identity, one may even say that a whole other research could be built upon the material data provided in this chapter. The importance of the visual materials lies in the way it transports the vision of the resident of their entourage, their surroundings and home. Each of the participant had his personal input which differs from the other participant, depending on his/her age and other life dimension which a two hours interview will still lack to reach. Furthermore, the sketch maps as a tool was a suitable tool to open new discussion regarding the place. Hence, through reaching out, asking questions about specific elements in the residents maps, new understanding of how they view their area was discovered.
One may reasonably argue that the place image has a correlated relation with place attachment: the weight the residents put on an element emphasize their importance to it. We can assume that some residents are more attached to their home than any other place from how big they draw it, how long it took them to draw it or even the meanings they associated with. Others tend to be more attached to their city: New Cairo as a whole and the facilities it provides such as shopping mall and wide spaces to move. Whereas others are attached to their neighborhood and residential area as it is related to neighbors, communal space and personal and social memories. However, one might assume that without the semi-constructive interviews, it would have not been possible to better code and analyze the visual material.
Acknowledgements
To my dear Professor Katarzyna Kajdanek, thank you for your constant support.
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