Cognitive mapping of public space: Causal assumptions and core values among Nordic city planners

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to show how planning logics, or worldviews with physical and theoretical components found locally in city planning, can be modelled through the creation of ‘cognitive maps’ depicting planners’ core values and causal assumptions as regards public space. Applying cognitive mapping (cf. Eden & Ackerman, 1998) as an approach to explicate the cognitive models at work in
planning may have at least two benefits: Firstly, it may be of academic interest to explicate planners’ tacit theories of any subject, particularly since this partly implicit knowledge is itself derived from reading, observing and experimenting in the field. To paraphrase Kaplan’s original adage: there is no better source of theory than good practice. Secondly, one may argue that it is good planning practice to explicate the hidden assumptions behind one’s planning imperatives, so that these can be confronted with existing knowledge, tested and if necessary, revised. This paper will provide an inroad into this methodology from the point of view of public space planning. First, it will briefly and very selectively discuss a number of planning models for city spaces, mainly in order to provide exemplification. Second, cognitive mapping will be presented and put in a broader methodological and intellectual context. After this the empirical material will be presented, including the cognitive maps of public space derived from the planning documents of four Nordic cities. Finally, the issue of how cognitive maps reveal both a theoretical consistency across planning contexts as well as a number of internal contradictions, of academic as well as of practical interest, will be raised.