In my doctoral work, I am using cognitive maps, which are simple maps or images drawn by people to assess how they acquire, store, recall, and decode spatial and environmental information. By studying and revealing the mental image of that city (or neighborhood) held by its inhabitants, images help understand how local inhabitants perceive the visual quality of cities (or neighborhoods) and the relation between elements of their environment. For my dissertation, I will use cognitive maps to understand residents’ perception of the environmental quality of their neighborhoods. I will bring a neighborhood map to each participant and ask him/her to place symbols over each area/space they deem appropriate. The symbols I will use are based on the Green Map methodology and list of icons. However, participants will also be able to add other symbols not included in this typology as a way to express their environmental perceptions in a more personal and culturally-sensitive way. After each participant completes a map, I will ask him or her to explain to me the meaning and representation of the map through the interpretation of the green map icons and the ones he/she will have also added to this official list. I will also ask participants to walk with me physically through the different places where they have placed symbols and ask them to explain how these places have changed in the last decade or so. I attempt to collect ten collective maps per neighborhood. Participants in this cognitive map exercise will be the neighborhood leaders mentioned above, as well as a sample of local residents who have actively participated in the initiatives and struggles to reclaim local spaces.

Such maps will help me understand how residents in each neighborhood perceive the physical characteristics of their urban space and how they spatially and visually conceive their neighborhood – especially from an environmental standpoint – and its place in the city. The maps will also help me tease out what role environmental quality and community space have had in building people’s identity and attachment to the neighborhood, and eventually participate in local action for improving it. Last, the maps will allow me to gain information about residents’ attitudes, fears or doubts about the vision, projects, and community engagement strategies promoted by local officials or planners, as I will contrast these maps with the interviews of municipal officials and planners. In sum, understanding how residents conceptualize their neighborhood problems and improvements over time is an important step in learning how they socially envision their neighborhoods and internalize and interpret the official discourses that give sense to these places.

My community is the Casc Antic neighborhood in Barcelona. Thirty-one percent of the population of the Casc Antic is made of foreigners, many of them illegal immigrants without regular income, and the majority of the neighborhood is low-income. Since 1983, when the Municipality of Barcelona put in place a Special Plan for Internal Reforms (PERI), conflicts have been recurrent between local authorities and inhabitants. The PERI was meant to revitalize degraded areas of the old town and promote tourism attractions while improving infrastructures and bringing crime and prostitution down. However, local inhabitants in the Casc Antic raised their voice early on against what they believed illustrated real estate speculation, harassment against the population, and neighborhood gentrification through displacement of foreign and low-income inhabitants. Over the last decade, several conflicts, especially the one in the Forat de La Vergonya, have illustrated how local residents and organizations have been fighting for the defense of an alternative model for redeveloping the Casc Antic by beautifying community spaces and improving environmental and health conditions. Over the years, the Forat has become an example of a contested space and territory conquered and defended by neighbors, local organizations, and activists, as well as an example of self-management of environmental and health benefits.