The Portrayal of a City’s Image by Young People

Abstract

It has been noted that young people are better at abstract thinking than adults; therefore, this paper investigates how young people portray the image of a city. Architecture students, aged 19 to 21, were selected to participate in the study, to assess their views on a part of the Bangkok Metropolitan Area, running from Silpakorn University to the Southern Bus Station.  Each student was required to draw a map to help a traveler who wants to go to the Southern Bus Station. The results show that several representations styles are used by the students in order to explain their mental images to other people. Keywords: image of a city, mental image, abstract thinking, adolescence © 2017 The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.