The Concept and Implementation of Perceptual Regions as Hierarchical Spatial Units for Evaluating Environmental Sensitivity

Studies of human spatial behavior and life spaces are useful because they allow a better understanding of the relationship between people and environment. In an era when there is growing public pressure to understand this relationship, studies of life spaces may provide insight into the environmental sensitivity of different groups of people. In this article, we propose a method for characterizing life spaces based on perceptual factors and show how the method can be used to explore the sensitivity of humans to environmental quality and to study human spatial behavior in the form of residential choice. In particular, the perceptual regions that we introduce constitute new hierarchical spatial units of analysis that join location to activities, the two key concepts of life spaces. The structural and environmental differences of the perceptual regions in relation to the sociological characteristics of urban and suburban behaviors are explored for two districts within the city of Québec (Canada). The approach offers the potential for developing some interesting applications in urban planning: the means to be more sensitive to the wishes of individual households in decisions concerning urban spaces, and a tool to assist persons evaluating different residential locations. It is noted that the analyses performed may be largely automated.