Description: While the issue of visual pollution has been widely debated, there is as yet no clear conclusion as to how best to control commercial signage and whether different urban contexts and people from different backgrounds and cultures have universal or distinct preferences. Drawing on a range of comparative and contrasting empirical studies of historic city centres in the UK and Brazil, this book examines questions of commercial signage control management, the preservation of historic heritage and user preference and satisfaction. The author takes an environment behaviour approach to this research, involving theories, concepts and methodologies related to environmental psychology, architecture, planning and urban design.
Review Quotes: 'Visual Pollution is both an exemplary and rare text in the fields of urban design and environmental perception, focusing as it does on a highly topical and important issue in built environment studies: the aesthetic experience of users, and how their appreciation of urban beauty can be measured'. Alan Reeve, Oxford Brookes University, UK The book succeeds in finding a set of recommendations to enhance the visual quality of city centres, useful for urban planners, civil engineers, architects, and lawmakers ... another strength of the book is the extensive background information provided about theories of perception and cognition of the built environment, legal frameworks to control commercial signage, and the forces shaping the visual quality of public space, such as consumer culture and city centre management and promotion. LSE Review of Books