Topic 6: Built Environment of Neighborhoods

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People cannot plan or build the world without creating or changing themselves. The built environment is the physical counterpart of the social community. It reflects the neighborhood’s history, culture, spiritual beliefs, and social organization. This section uses The Hill neighborhood in St. Louis to illustrate Kevin Lynch’s categories of “edge”, “path”, “node”, “landmark”, and “district” and also the concept of “sacred space”.

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Reading List
Built Environment

Subtopics inside:
Meaning
Physical elements / identity
Physical environment and culture
Urban Renewal / Loss of Home and Damage to Identity

Selected Readings

Kevin Lynch, A Theory of Good City Form (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1981), ” Sense”, pp. 131-150.
Reading #1 (pdf)

Mirceau Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1959), “Sacred Space and Making the World Sacred”, pp. 20-65.
Reading #2 (pdf)

Louis Colombo, “Neighborhood Place and Community, History, Social Capital, and Religion in The Hill District of Saint Louis, Missouri”
Reading #9 (pdf)

Levi Romero, “La Nueva Resolana”, in New Mexico, May 2001, pp. 26-31.
Reading #15 (pdf)