Experts' perspectives on changing urban environments

The study aims at developing a person x environment incongruence concept. Experts' (city planners and politicians) evaluation of urban environments is studied in order to develop an understanding of planning processes based on social psychological and environmental psychological concepts. On the basis of studies indicating an independence of evaluating environments and evaluating the importance of respective categories, the specific perspective of expects more or less responsible for urban planning is analysed. To operationalize important aspects of experts' perspectives, the dimensions much less than possibility for impacts much greater than and much less than confirmation much greater than (responsibility for status quo and its development) are introduced. 61 city planners from an East German town (commitment low) and a West German town (commitment high) evaluate possible impacts on urban environments on a 50-item questionnaire. The expected interrelations are tested by regression analysis and analysis of variance. Politicians generally claim responsibility for the status quo in case they (re-)present opportunities for impact; this is especially pronounced in case of positively evaluated states. As expected, important aspects are evaluated as being more likely to be influenced. Experts with high commitment (re-)present less opportunities to influence dissatisfactory urban environments than their colleagues with low commitment, what has been expected, too. Focussing (re-)presentations of experts, the results indicate that considerations on social judgement may be consulted in analyzing environmental planning.