VALUE COGNITIVE MAPS: TWO EXPERIMENTAL APPLICATIONS IN SOUTHERN ITALY

After a brief profile of mental images and a review of pertinent recent literature, this paper discusses the image of the city as developed by Lynch. The work of Lynch serves as the springboard for developing the role and importance of mental images in establishing Value Cognitive Maps-maps showing city zones having relative homogeneous values as perceived by real estate professionals. The paper then describes two experimental applications conducted in two cities in southern Italy-Bari and Taranto. In Bari the value perceptions were obtained by having real estate broker-members of the Real Estate Stock Exchange delineate the zones they felt were relevant and estimate the square meter value of a standard house in each zone. In Taranto, similar information was obtained by interviewing 16 real estate brokers. Both experiments provide evidence that this type of analysis is meaningful to the participants and that the information obtained can be useful for policy considerations.