Environment and Behavior: Planning and Everyday Urban Life

by John Douglas Porteous

460 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1977

Reviews

[John M.]

In this classic environmental psychology text, John Douglas Porteous's, a British-born Canadian researcher, expands on the personal space principles of Robert Sommer, and the cognitive map and design elements of Kevin Lynch. He organizes the behavioral component of the book as occurring within a nesting hierarchy of spaces: microspace, or personal space; mesospace, roughly analogous with an individual's home or neighborhood; and macrospace, or home range, which can extend to encompass a large area of a city and its environs. Porteous ranks environments in a more temporal fashion beginning with the phenomenal environment, then personal environment, and finally, the contextual environment. The suggestions for planning based on the psychological elements can be considered as a blueprint for a practical application of Lynch's more theoretical concepts.
These frameworks are Porteous's contributions to what can still be considered an emergent field. It is this construct which has survived the passage of time, while the more dated elements provide an insight to the intellectual climate of the 60s and 70s. Overall, an excellent book, geared toward planners and students and written in a very conversant British style.