This is another of a series of publications resulting from the project to create a new industrial center for Venezuela away from the Caracas-to-Valencia coastal axis. Beginning in the early 1960s, the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana contracted with the Joint Center for Urban Studies of M.I.T. and Harvard University to design Ciudad Guayana as the economic capital of the southern Guayana region. This book reports on the efforts of the team of urban planners to establish an identity for the new city being formed out of the disparate cluster of small communities standing at the juncture of the Orinoco and Caroní rivers.
The team surveyed the population of Ciudad Guayana to determine how they perceived the city and what they valued in an urban environment. The results were analyzed by income, education, and other categories, and contrasted with the “expert” opinion of city planners. The variances of opinion comprise part of the “conflicting realities” referred to in the subtitle, which make every city many cities in one. After describing the survey results in detail, Mr. Appleyard then generalizes about how the structures of cities can serve as information systems, in which such elements as the size, location, and visibility of buildings communicate necessary facts to residents and visitors.
It is difficult to know who is the intended audience of the book. Latin Americanists, if they persist in making their way through the special jargon of urban planning, will be distressed by the seeming egocentricity of the planning team and by the absence of discussion of the specific cultural milieu in which they were operating. Urban planners who are not Latin Americanists will find equal difficulty with the lack of a glossary to define the many Spanish words found in the text. Moreover, it will be nearly impossible to read the numerous maps and sketches because they have been reduced too much in size and because the symbols are inadequately explained.
Typical of attempts to quantify heretofore highly qualitative disciplines, this study does suffer at times from the shortcoming of taking great pains to discover the obvious. Nevertheless, the author should be lauded for his attempt to clarify and define the process of city design—something which is much needed.
