ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates more closely the relationship between landscapes and identity using Strasbourg as an example. Tourists cannot be tourists without landscapes to tour. While it is the role of tourists to tease out the identity of places from their landscapes. An analysis of urban design provides vital clues in linking the design of the built environment to social constructions of place, as a means to uncover the shifting orientation of social identity in Strasbourg, France. Major features of urban design in the study area are analogous to the identity of Strasbourg society's orientation toward regional and national constructions of place. In this age of globalization and time-space compression, the state is no longer the primary place in the social consciousness. As decentralization continues in Europe, locales are finding their own voice on the international stage. Strasbourg exists as a prominent place in both the imagination of Strasbourg society and the concrete and bronze urban landscape.
