Unit 02

Three Cities
Jersey City
• New Jersey lies between Newark and New York City
• Railroads and elevated highways
• Divided into ethnic and class neighborhoods
• No single center, rather 4 or 5
• Uncoordinated street system
• Drabness, dirt and smell
• Visual structure derived from same Boston diagram of city
• Area disrupted by strong edges
• Lack of character
• Bare and fragmented map
• Journal square is strong point in city because of intensive
shopping and entertainment but traffic and chaos are
confusing
• Hudson boulevard is also strong point
• West side park is only large park in city
• Bergen section is class area
• New Jersey Medical center is tall and white on edge of cliff
• New York City skyline clearly visible
• Few well-trafficked streets
• Less recognizable districts, landmarks, centers and nodal
points
• Large blank areas with small home territories
• River is a strong isolating element
• City is hard to symbolize with no distinctive sections
• Low imageability
Los Angeles
• Great metropolitan region
• Different from Boston
• Size comparable to Boston and Jersey City
• Areas more familiar through work place in offices and stores
• Heavy activity
• Large distinctive buildings
• Regular grid of streets
• Central area called “downtown”
• Intensive shopping in central area but not for best shopping
• Undifferentiated matrix grid pattern of streets
• Central activities extend and shift
• Active and ecologically ordered
• Denser than Jersey City
• Civic center is strong district
• Pershing square is strongest element of all
• Broadway is a main path
• Regional orientation is determined by the ocean, the
mountains and hills, the valley regions, large development
districts
• Smog and haze are frequent in the city
• Dull environment
• Automobile traffic and highway system dominant