Professionals' City versus Inhabitants' City: A Comparison of Shannonian and Semantic Information in Representations

Abstract

Planning is generally understood as an activity that serves the 'public interest'. Yet, how professionals represent places for this purpose are often said to be contrary to how their inhabitants do the same, implying that professionals' interest may not necessarily be in the public interest. Therefore, knowing how inhabitants know places is often discussed as a prerequisite for professionals to intervene in it. In this context, this paper reveals the findings of a study that investigated the differences between the professionals and non-(formal) professional inhabitants in representing Matara, a small city of Sri Lanka in their minds. The representations of the professionals and the inhabitants were elicited in the form of mental maps and their contents were analyzed to compare the Shannonion and Semantic information contents in them. Although it is difficult to disintegrate the two from each other, Shannonian information associates with the measurable-physical properties of a place while the semantic information carries its intangible and value laden elements. The results revealed that there were greater similarities in the Shannonian information contained in the representations of both professional and inhabitants, but the semantic information differed significantly. It was further revealed that the inhabitants sense the place through personal likings and socio cultural values, while the professionals depend more upon literal understandings and general characteristics. The findings suggest that addressing the public interest of a place has to explore grounds beyond the general information used in conventional urban planning and design process~s.