This is an eminently useful book for the many professionals embarked on civic improvement who also want to consult the larger comuinity. Readers might range from urban design teachers and professionals to public policy groups and planning commissions to downtown chambers of commerce, tourist commissions, and real estate groups. The book not only shows how to solicit information about citizen views and bring this together to form an "evaluative image," but it suggest basic strategies for presentation and effectiveness . . . Nasar brings a rich store of empirical research from the visual assessment field to this work, particularly as it tests the relationship between environmental processes and human spatial behavior . . . Overall, the book is extremely helpful, not only in providing thoughtful interpretaitons of prevailing tastes and brends, but in its wealth of suggestions for new research techniques and new methods of visual presentiation, both derived from his own work and the work of associates. I was informed by Nasar's suggestions for ways to refine and diversify evaluation methods, to make fruitful comparisons between cities, to identify successful city traits for emulation elsewhere, to predicte neighborhood needs from census data, and to research wihtin a low budget. The ultimate usefulness of this book lies in the application of planning strategies to engage the support of public groups for improving the city appearance.

This book is a major contribution to the fields of environmental aesthetics and urban design. Urban designers and architects often assume that they understand how people perceive their environment. Nasar has discovered how they really view their environment and evaluate it through effective practical research methods. Thus, the book gives us all clues to what is important to the user helping us to make design decisions that are meaningful.

Nasar also makes a case for effective empirical research in urban design, a subject that is often ignored by urban designers. He provides designers with a useful set of tools to evaluate perceptions of specific environments and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each giving hints to developing appropriate design research strategies.

The book blends theory, empirical methods with practical advice. Any architect, landscape architect or urban designer interested in creating environments sensitive to the user will find this book useful

The Evaluative Image of the City, what a great book! This is a very informative and useful book and I would encourage anyone interested in the visual quality of our cities to read it. I haven't seen any other book that so clearly answers the questions posed by Kevin Lynch in The Image of the City - What does the city's form actually mean to the people living there? What can the city planners do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dwellers?

This book is one that will appeal to a broad spectrum of people - e.g., informed citizenry, city councils, city planners, urban designers, urban geographers, landscape architects, architects, as well as other academics/researchers. In fact, anyone interested in the visual form of our cities should read this book. It will give you a new perspective on how the visual form of the city impacts our enjoyment of cities. It also provides some clearly delineated methods for both assessing the image and modifying it. These techniques can be easily utilized by governmental or non-governmental agencies as well as interested citizens groups to better understand the evaluative image of their city, town, village or neighborhood and do something about it.

The author - Jack Nasar - has built upon the seminal work by Kevin Lynch in The Image of the City. However, whereas Lynch placed the emphasis of his study on two key aspects of the image - identity and structure - Nasar has taken on the more difficult task of assessing the meaning (or evaluative aspect) of the image. Nasar has been able to go beyond identity and structure to present a very convincing argument that people have a shared evaluative image (which is equated with the likability of the city's visual form) and has made clear the importance of that image for city design.

Through the analysis of the shared evaluative images of two cities - Knoxville and Chattanooga - the author has been able to identify many of the key elements of urban likability - i.e., naturalness, upkeep/civilities, openness, historical significance, and order. But he doesn't merely leave this an academic exercise, he attempts to show how we can shape the evaluative image. He presents possible guidelines for desired outcomes, such as creating a(n) pleasant appearance, exciting appearance, relaxing appearance, or high-status appearance. Furthermore, he suggests how the methods and guidelines can be easily linked into local planning processes and policy.

What a contribution this readable and well-researched book is to the field of urban studies. Nasar has not only answered the questions posed by Lynch, but has also shown us how important our shared evaluative image is to the quality of our everyday life and how we can, not only, take responsibility for the visual quality of our cities, but, more importantly, take action.

The best book I've read on design competitions. In fact, the best book I've read about architecture. A must read for anyone interested in the field

I've wondered about the trophy architecture I've seen in my city and elsewhere. As did Tom Wolfe in From Bauhaus to our house, Design by Competition goes beyond the publicity to tell the true story: The emperor's wearing no clothes. Nasar packs the book with facts and anecdotes about flaws in competition designs through history, and the disastrous results of a Peter Eisenman competition winning design. If you liked Wolfe's book, you'll love this one.

A compelling and comprehensive book about the problems with design competition architecture and signature architecture. It analyzes competition successes and failures through history; and provides a detailed analysis of Peter Eisenman's competition winning design for the Wexner Center, a full blown disaster that the critics loved. He shows that the emperor is wearing no clothers. It is a must read for any citizen concerned about their built environment and for anyone involved in a design competition--sponsors, jurors, competitors, and concerned citizens.

The present book shows delightully how there has been a lot of research on the field of environmental psychology, having a strong relation with Industrial Design and Architecture. It consists of three parts, first the theory on the field, then there is the section on the practice of this field, which, in my opinion, is the best part, because it shows the different relevant experiments done in the past years which have made empirical evidence of the importance of our environment, and its influence on ourselves as human beings. It has some that are about lighting, some about street advertising, and some others about urban and rural landscapes. The following part of the book is more of a conclusion, but it still highlights important aspects of environmental psychology, in relation to architecture, and why it it worth studying it. The book is a perfect guide for those who are interested in feeling better in their own homes, and who want to change places in order to feel one way or another in them. I highly recommend this book.

The present book shows delightully how there has been a lot of research on the field of environmental psychology, having a strong relation with Industrial Design and Architecture. It consists of three parts, first the theory on the field, then there is the section on the practice of this field, which, in my opinion, is the best part, because it shows the different relevant experiments done in the past years which have made empirical evidence of the importance of our environment, and its influence on ourselves as human beings. It has some that are about lighting, some about street advertising, and some others about urban and rural landscapes. The following part of the book is more of a conclusion, but it still highlights important aspects of environmental psychology, in relation to architecture, and why it it worth studying it. The book is a perfect guide for those who are interested in feeling better in their own homes, and who want to change places in order to feel one way or another in them. I highly recommend this book.