ABSTRACT
One can point to many outstanding advances in our crafting of “the city” – in essence, realizing urban environments that facilitate our activities, accommodate our lifestyles, introduce amenities and celebrate culture. One can, conversely, identify steps that have resulted in deterioration of air quality, reduction of social interaction, increase in disease and disorder and so on. In other words, the challenges of “making” our environments prove daunting and complicated. Our efforts, however well intended, do not always result in positive ends. It is the search for meaning in the human-made world, and the role and responsibilities of designers and planners to such ends, that provides a fundamental emphasis for the present essay.
