Percepción de la imagen pública de la ciudad de A Coruña por sus ciudadanos

Abstract

The study of the image of the city is a multidisciplinary field in which we find psychologists, designers, environmental planners, architects, geographers and other researchers interested in the implications of environmental spatial representation. In this paper we analyze the assessment made by a group of university students in the city of A Coruna on various aspects of the city: its historic center, the physical environment of the city and its human environment, and the image of the city through its semantic characterization (27 pairs of polar adjectives according to the objective of the research: Clean-Dirty, Central-Peripheral, Poor-Rich, Happy-Sad, Agricultural-Industrial, Conservative-Progressive Marine-Terrestrial, Safe-Insecure , Cultured-Incultivated, Related-Isolated, Orderly-Chaotic, Healthy-Unhealthy, Interesting-Bored, Dense-Empty, Regular-Irregular, Comfortable-Uncomfortable, Colorist-Colorless, Big-Small, New-Old, Planned-Unplanned, Private-Public, Wellcoming-Inhospitable, Monotonous-Diversa, Developed-Underdeveloped, Popular-Artificial, Human-Dehumanized, Tourist-No tourist). We have observed that scores with which respondents value the historic center of A Coruña are close to the intermediate value, although slightly closer to the first element of each pair presented: Old, Central, Popular, Tourist and Cared for. In the latter we found significant differences between the valuation of men and women. Women valued the old town as less care than men. It is noted a more positive assessment of the built environment of the city (physical environment, houses, streets, squares ...) than of their human environment (people), although both are positive. As for the semantic categorization of the city, we found extreme valuations, but slightly offset intermediate value scores always toward the positive element of each pair. In the value judgments of the city we only found significant differences between men and women in the pair of adjectives Related-Isolated, in which women rated the city as more concerned than men.